The largest North American survey of the Israeli, New York-based artist’s work to date, 'Keren Cytter: Based on a True Story' featured well-known short films that have been exhibited at the New Museum and the Venice Biennale alongside little-known works. Spanning four galleries across two locations in Oakville, Ontario, the exhibition combined nine videos with drawings, artist books, photographs and ephemera.

A performance by Keren Cytter's company, D.I.E. Now, organised in collaboration with the Images Festival and sponsored by the arts funding group Partners in Art, accompanied the exhibition.

FIELD OF KNOWLEDGE:
Borrowing from an eclectic range of sources, from avant-garde film, horror flicks, reality TV, musicals and novels, Cytter sheds light on today’s mediated culture: how our subjectivities can seem cobbled together from fictional scenes and images, as well as our own—and other people's—experiences.

The exhibition surveyed Cytter's interests in literary and cinematic cliche and convention, and the ways in which their languages become emulated within the everyday.

METHODOLOGY:
The frenzied atmosphere of Cytter's art - created through the use of hand-held cameras, abrupt and disorienting edits, affecting soundtracks, 'bad' acting, and a panoply of cinematic tricks - evokes an uncertain, anxious mood. Suggesting the slippery boundary between conscious and unconscious states, these films—which until recently were primarily shot in Cytter’s apartment, starring her friends— take on dreamlike qualities, with attendant loops and repetitions, uncanny echoes and perplexing misrecognitions. While subtitles often accompany the assorted languages spoken on screen, they don’t always correspond to the words uttered.

DISSEMINATION:
Following its Canadian debut, the exhibition is set to tour to venues in North America (tbc). An exhibition catalogue is in preparation to accompany the tour.

Reviews:

Esse Magazine
http://www.esse.ca/en/compte-rendu/76/oakville

Canadian Art: http://www.canadianart.ca/reviews/2012/05/17/keren-cytter-based-on-a-true-story-oakville-galleries/

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/7622