Keren Cytter: Rose Garden

Screen still from “Rose Garden.”

Video Gallery

Keren Cytter: Rose Garden

September 7-November 2

Cytter's short 2014 film explores the unsettling duality of American culture's ideals regarding being protectors of life and harbingers of death. This title is a reference to both the 1964 Joanne Greenburg book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, which deals with mental illness and the 1971-84 Marine Corp recruitment campaign “We Don’t Promise You A Rose Garden.” These references are meant to clue the viewer in that the seemingly ordinary setting hides a distorted reality. As the tension builds, multiple guns and disjointed conversations between characters escalate the sense that the calm is about to be shattered. A chaotic shooting spree unfolds against the backdrop of normal daily life. The chilling final scene serves as a grim conclusion addressing violence and its pervasive presence within American culture.

Run time: 8 minutes and 55 seconds

Please note: This work contains adult themes and gun violence that some may find triggering.

About the artist

Keren Cytter (b. 1977) creates films, performances, drawings and photographs on topics of social alienation, language representation, and the function of individuals in predetermined cultural systems through experimental modes of storytelling and human perception. Mostly characterised by a non-linear, cyclical logic Cytter’s films consist of multiple layers of images; conversation; monologue, and narration systematically composed to undermine linguistic conventions and traditional interpretation schemata. Recalling amateur home movies and video diaries, these montages of impressions, memories, and imaginings are poetic and self-referential in composition. The artist creates intensified scenes drawn from everyday life in which the overwhelmingly artificial nature of the situations portrayed is echoed by the very means of their production. 

Cytter was awarded the Joseph Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2021), Absolut Art Award, Stockholm (2009), Ars Viva Prize, Kulturkreis der Deutschen Wirtschaft, Berlin (2008) and the Bâloise Art Prize at Art Basel (2006).

Recent solo exhibitions include Hot Lava Night, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany (2023); Double Standard, LLS Paleis, Antwerp, Belgium (2023). Cytter’s work was showcased in a major survey exhibition at the Ludwig Forum Aachen (2022), featuring: films, soap operas, plays, sculptures, drawings, novels, zines, life coaching guides, children’s books and a festival. Cytter’s videos were shown in solo exhibitions at Winterthur Kunstmuseum, Winterthur (2020); Centre for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2019); Museion Bolzano, Bolzano (2019), Künstlerhaus - Halle für Kunst & Medien, Graz (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2015), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2014); State of Concept, Athens (2014), Tate Modern, London (2012), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2011); München Kunstverein (2011); Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2010); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2010); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2010); X Initiative, New York (2009); Le Plateau Paris, Paris (2009), Witte de With, Rotterdam (2008), MUMOK Vienna, Vienna (2007); Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2005); Kunsthalle Zurich, Zurich (2005) and Kunst-Werke Berlin, Berlin (2006).

Keren Cytter's work has been shown in numerous group exhibitions such as MOMENTUM 10, Momentum Biennial, Moss (2019); Masculinity, Düsseldorf Kunstverein, Düsseldorf (2019); SUR/FACE: Mirrors, Museum Angewandtekunst, Frankfurt, (2017); Instructions for Happiness, 21er Haus, Vienna, State (in) Concepts, KADIST, Paris (2017), Vision on Vision- Lemaitre video collection, SEMA Museum, Seoul (2017); Busan Biennial, Busan (2016); Creating Realities - Encounters Between Art and Cinema, Pinakothek der Moderne and Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2015); Political Populism, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2015); John Bock, Keren Cytter, Paul Pfeiffer, Gillian Wearing and Akram Zaatari, Regen Projects, Los Angeles (2013); Expanded Cinema, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow (2011); Videonale 13, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn (2011);  Found in Translation, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2011); Morality, Witte de With, Rotterdam, Revolution, van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven (2010); Scenväxlingar / Scene Shifts, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2010); 8th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, Future Generation Art Prize: 20 Shortlisted Artists, PinchukArtCentre Kiev (2010); Time Out of Joint: Recall and Evocation in Recent Art, Whitney Museum, New York (2009); The Generational: Younger Than Jesus, New Museum, New York (2009); Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2009); Fare Mondi 53rd International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, (2009); VideoZone: Video Biennale, Tel Aviv (2008); Shifting Identities, Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich (2008); Yokohama Triennial, Yokohama, (2008); Torino Triennale, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Rivoli (2008); Television Delivers People, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2008); The Second Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2007); The first Hertzelia Biennial, Hertzelia (2007); The 9th Lyon Biennial, Lyon (2007); All Hawaii Entrees/Lunar Reggae, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2006).

Her films have been screened in numerous film festivals such as The Wrong Movie, Berlinale, Berlin, Germany (2024); Villae film festival, Villa d’Este, Tivoli, Bolzano Film Festival, Bolzano (both in 2019); European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck (2018); A Retrospective at Bergamo Film Festival, Bergamo (2016); Rotterdam Film Festival, Rotterdam and KunstFilmBiennale Köln, Cologne (both in 2009); Berlin International Film Festival, Expended Forum, Berlin (2008); Berlin International Film Festival, Expended Forum, Berlin and Glasgow Film Festival, Glasgow (both in 2007). 

This exhibition is made possible thanks to the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.