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22/5/2007

Keren Cytter

Galerie Elisabeth Kaufmann, Zurich

Something happened

Keren Cytter was born in 1977 in Tel Aviv where she finished her studies in 1999. In 2004 she graduated from De Ateliers, Amsterdam. She lives and works in Berlin at the present. On the occasion of Art Basel Art Statement 06 she was awarded the prestigious Baloise Art Price. Since 2004 numerous exhibitions took place at famous institutions like Frankfurter Kunstverein, Kunsthalle Zürich, KW Berlin, Gamec Bergamo; Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin and Bologna. Since then she also exhibits regularly in galleries in Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, Paris and Zürich, including a very recent show in Cologne. In January 2007 she accomplished her first Feature Film which will be on show at cinemas.

Keren Cytter has produced over forty videos since 2001. Although her work is shown in galleries and uses video, it would be a mistake to automatically categorize her oeuvre as video art. Barry Schwabsky in his essay on Keren Cytter: "if anything her most significant contribution to the medium might come from the way she cuts against its grain. (...) Her medium might be called cinema rather then video: She's an auteur as much as an artist."
Keren Cytter narrates provocative stories of in which triteness collides with absurdity and fiction is betrayed to reality. She trackes and strips down mechanisms with shrewd delight. Felt emotions are carried ad absurdum by stylistic means and cinematic dramaturgies are revealed by asynchronism. As if to emphazise the dry reality within fiction, lay actors are bound to shape the story by blatantly ragged performances.

The exhibition "Something happened" features her latest drawings as well as a film of the same title which was influenced by Natalia Ginzburg's successful novel È stato così (1947).

Keren Cytter starts from her own idea which she interweaves then in the already existing drama. The film takes up neither the plain literary style of the book, nor does the story follow the plot accurately. By preparing their secure death in front of the camera the two nameless protagonists ratten the fictional plot line in a goulish way. Again kitchen and bedroom of the artist provide the setting – "kitchen-sink realism" (Schwabsky) at its best.

Simular to the film, the drawings are full of enigmatic realism. Keren Cytter harks back to existing motives within movies, advertisement and digital systems and transforms them into a surrealistically appearing, laminary visual world. Thus, for example, electronic units are transferred into a handwritten pixel font.

We are very pleased to announce the second solo show of Keren Cytter at our gallery.

The opening will take place on Wednesday, 23. May 2007, 6 – 8 pm.

Galerie Elisabeth Kaufmann
Mullerstrasse 57 - Zurich
Free admission

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