CHICAGO, IL.- The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago presents New York multidisciplinary artist Keren Cytter’s first large-scale presentation of the artist’s work in the United States. The exhibition features eight videos from the past decade and a new series of drawings and live performance works. Cytter’s canny, low-budget videos create the atmosphere of film noir, horror movies, or soap operas with their familiar storylines—the twists and turns of love, sex, jealousy, murder, and revenge. The exhibition is on view March 28 to October 4, 2015 and is organized by the Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, Denmark, with MCA Curator Naomi Beckwith coordinating the MCA presentation.

Cytter’s pared-down style of filmmaking utilizes the barest of resources; she often films in her own apartment and incorporates intentionally kitschy, lo-fi effects. Even as Cytter’s characters enact intense moments, the actors are often emotionally detached from the drama or are even playing multiple roles; actions repeat themselves and seem out of sequence. Her work plays with the conventions of narrative cinema to reveal or upend unwritten rules, and as Cytter moves between multiple languages, plotlines, and genres within a single work, her work can foster anticipation and disbelief.

To accompany the exhibition, the MCA and the Kunsthal Charlottenborg co-produced a new anthology of all of Cytter’s film treatments—judged as “the best” or “the worst”, by invitation of the artist, by Naomi Beckwith and Jacob Fabricius, the exhibition curator and former director of the Kunsthal Charlottenborg.

Keren Cytter’s multimedia practice includes films, video installations, performance, and drawings.In addition to her visual art work, Cytter has authored three novels, edited an anthology of poetry, founded a dance and theater company, D.I.E. Now (Dance International Europe Now), and cofounded APE (Art Projects Era), which presents art outside of traditional gallery and museum settings. Her work has been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, and awards include the Bâloise Art Prize of Art Basel. Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, she attended school at the de Ateliers in the Netherlands and the Avni Institute in Tel-Aviv. She lives and works in New York City.