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Keren
Cytter| Knut Klaßen
Mar
8 - May 2, 2008
The Galerie Olaf Stüber
will show four video works in the current exhibition. Two by Keren Cytter:
Something Happened (2007, 7 min) and Der Spiegel (2007, 4:50 min), and
two by Knut Klaßen: Liv (2006/07, 38:26 min) and Lis (2005/06, 19:56
min).
Keren
Cytter (born 1977 in Tel Aviv, lives and works in Berlin) is a storyteller.
She narrates using the medium of experimental cinema, drawing on a multitude
of genres, from Film Noir to fictive documentary film and pure Cinema
Verité. Short stories in which everyday occurrences coincide with
mystery.
Keren Cytter tells stories that are both commonplace and absurd, that
form a balancing act between the comical, the grotesque, and the tragic
while at the same time commenting on the medium film itself.
Her films document her environment, her apartment, her friends and family,
who operate in a kind of dreamworld filled with egocentric goals, deep-seated
frustration, personal ambitions, and intimate desires.
Cytter deconstructs traditional narrative structures by superimposing
clips with non-harmonizing voice- and sound sequences, often doubling
them with subtitles, and thus mixing a frequently astonishing and increasingly
arbitrary reality.(...)
Knut
Klaßen (born 1967 in Münster, lives and works in Berlin) also
tells stories. He also works on the medium itself, each video defines
a new form, his protagonists are actors or friends, unconditionally in
the here and now. While Cytter draws on Film Noir, Klaßen seeks
his kindred spirits in the Nouvelle Vague. Text and statements accompany
his films. His films themselves are statements, assertations. Klaßen
strives for totality, taking a challenging stance.
Klaßen’s narratives are not linear. Instead, they take the
form of investigations – reflections on the present. In doing so,
he pursues – with his very own aesthetic approach – questions
about the self-perception and production conditions of artists, about
the basic conditions underlying the visual arts and the question of how
far one can take freedom in art.
Theatre plays a central
role in the work of both Cytter und Klaßen. They act in a theatre,
and use theatrical elements (choir), wooden-sounding auditions, or intense
staged portrayals of two protagonists. |