Presentation of three small children books, The Curious Squirrel (2015), The Brutal Turtle (2018) and The Furious Hamster (2018), of recent drawings and three objects on wheels
For the CEC booth at artgenève, Keren Cytter presents a little reading room for children with a series of recent drawings and three volumes on wheels: a red ball, a yellow pyramid, a blue cube, objects that are between mobile shapes and children seats. This childlike environment will serve as a display for the book, The Brutal Turtle and The Furious Hamster, both coproduced by Jacob Fabricius, artist director at Kunsthal Aarhus, who runs Pork Salad Press, Copenhagen and the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva.
The two new titles are part of a series of three books. The first opus, also shown at the CEC booth, The Curious Squirrel (Pork Salad Press, 2015), written by Keren Cytter more than ten years ago, tells the story of a baby squirrel that is asked by her mother Mrs Fox to go and buy some milk at the local grocery store. On the way, the curious squirrel meets the Beggar Rabbit, the Notorious Junky Goose, Mrs Donkey, and Mr Elephant, among others. This is how the story begins, and it continues with the second book The Brutal Turtle. Lost in the desert, he will meet Miss Mole and the same strange creatures. The story continues with a third edition entitled The Furious Hamster.
Keren Cytter is an artist, writer and filmmaker. Her films, video installations or drawings tackle social and affective realities that are told in the form of a story or a tale and involve themes such as love, friendship, sex, jealousy, violence and issues related to difficulties involving human relations. The mode of narration is often non-linear, the scenes come in a narrative disorder, are repeated or reversed, frequently intersected by recurring pictures or extracts: voice-overs, dialogues, monologues… Often realized with a hand-held camera with friends, her films use the codes of home video, caught in the act, inspired by the Dogme. Keren Cytter’s favourite film directors are Lars von Trier, Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino or David Lynch. The scenes from everyday life or the discussions between amateur actors seem to be filmed like documentaries but bathe also in a melodramatic sitcom-like atmosphere, producing objects that oscillate between the natural and the artificial, and that are dark, provocative, funny and poetic at the same time. Her work is very open, rich and prolix, counting more than 50 video works, three novels, an opera and several performances that gave Keren Cytter a large recognition at an international level. Her artworks have been exposed in the most important institutions, among others Portikus (Frankfurt), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), CCA Center for Contemporary Art (Kitakyushu), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (Vienne), KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), Museum of Modern Art (Dublin), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)… She has also participated in many international manifestations like the 9th Lyon Biennale, Manifesta 7 (Trentino), the Yokohama Triennale 2008, the Venice Biennale 2009.
Keren Cytter was born in 1977 in Tel Aviv. She lives and works in New York.
