Keren Cytter's "Video Art Manual"

Artist displays her witty, eclectic and free-ranging brain at DiverseWorks.

Comments (0) By Kelly Klaasmeyer Wednesday, Oct 17 2012

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Courtesy of Zack Feuer Gallery, New York

Video Art Manual is a good primer on Cytter's work.

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DiverseWorks

4102 Fannin St., Suite 200
Houston, TX 77004

Category: Community Venues

Region: Downtown/ Midtown

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"Keren Cytter: Video Art Manual"

Through October 20. DiverseWorks, 1117 East Freeway. (This is the last show in the downtown space, DiverseWorks will be moving to its Midtown location at the end of the month. A closing party on Wednesday, October 24, from 4 to 8 p.m. will celebrate the DiverseWorks years at the old location.)

Courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery, New York

Video Art Manual is a good primer on Cytter's work.

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There is a lot of jargony writing about Cytter's work, but the artist herself is funny, direct and unpretentious. I see her work not so much in the context of the elaborate agendas ascribed to it but as an outpouring from Cytter's witty, eclectic and free-ranging mind. She writes (copies of her books are on display in the gallery), she founded the dance company Dance International Europe NOW (DIE NOW), she held a crazed 48-hour poetry academy in Berlin called "Mai Thai University" (the results of which are on view in the back of the gallery), and she writes and directs plays. Cytter has an amazing amount of diversely creative energy. Not all of her efforts are equally successful, however. While her play Show Real Drama, presented at DiverseWorks last weekend, did not make me demand that hour of my life back, it did make me think of all the other stuff I could have been doing.

"Video Art Manual" closes this weekend, and if you miss it, Cytter's videos are all online at vimeo.com/kerencytter, so you can watch them from the comfort of your home. Cytter doesn't seem to be that particular about where you watch her work. She's not trying to control your experience, she's just sharing what she's done. However, if you do watch at home, you'll miss the gallery's large projections, as well as that awkward moment that occurs when you're standing in a group of strangers while the guy in Cytter's Les Ruissellements du Diable (The Devil's Whispers) masturbates.