The seven most exciting hours of Mr. Trier’s life in twenty-four chapters

Witte de With Publishers with STUK Kunstencentrum, Leuven and Sternberg Press, New York/Berlin are proud to announce the publication of Keren Cytter’s The seven most exciting hours of Mr. Trier’s life in twenty-four chapters.

The artist’s second novel folds an apocalyptic adventure into a true story told in a televised interview by the notorious Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. It describes seven hours in the life of Tibor Klaus Trier – Lars Von Trier’s father – from the moment that his wife goes into labor early in the morning until Lars is born.

The setting is Copenhagen, dominated by a hospital that recalls Von Trier’s television series The Kingdom. The plot is thick and fast-paced: Tibor arrives with his wife Margaret at the Maternity Ward of Mercy General Hospital, only to realize that he must return home to retrieve a forgotten mobile – his only link to a sister in distress. On the way, he stops to get gas and gets involved in a car robbery. A cancer takes root in his body. Back at home, he sneaks a peak at Margaret’s e-mail and a great secret is revealed that makes him rush back to the hospital to kill her and her son. En route he crashes his new car and his body brakes into pieces and he loses his memory. Tibor wakes up in the same hospital where his wife is delivering and finds his sister next to him. Mercy General is haunted by a great ghost and the day is Armageddon when the ghost needs to challenge the living with an army of zombie children – all born within its walls.

Who is this great ghost? What does Margaret hold in her body? Will Tibor survive his one-day-old cancer? All and more are revealed…

The publication of The seven most exciting hours … is occasioned by solo exhibitions of Keren Cytter’s work at Witte de With, Rotterdam (NL), 1 – 30 March 2008, curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen and Zoë Gray and at STUK Kunstencentrum, Leuven (BE), 8 Dec 2007 – 3 Feb 2008, curated by Eva Wittocx.

Berlin Launch
on the occasion of
Guilthouse; or The Great Fall of the Cartier Family
Installation by Keren Cytter / Susanne Sachsse
1 November 2008, 6 p.m.
HEBBEL AM UFER – HAU 3
Tempelhofer Ufer 10
10963 Berlin
www.hebbel-am-ufer.de

Colophon
Initiated by: Nicolaus Schafhausen
Editor: Monika Szewczyk
Proof reading: Rebecca Fortey and Zoë Gray
Translation from the Hebrew: Hillel Roman
Design: Surface (www.surface.de)
Printed in Univers Condensed Bold, Akzidenz Grotesk Regular on Munken Pure, 115 g/m2 at Vier Tuerme GmbH – Benedict Press, Muensterschwarzach Abtei, Germany.
Format: 193 pages, 4 b&w illustrations
Publication date: 13 October 2008
Publishers: Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art; Rotterdam; STUK Kunstencentrum, Leuven, www.stuk.be;
Sternberg Press, Berlin / New York, www.sternberg-press.com
ISBN: 978-1-933128-41-2
Price: €19

Distribution:
Via Sternberg Press: www.sternberg-press.com
Europe (except France, Benelux, UK): Vice Versa Vertrieb, Berlin,
www.vice-versa-vertrieb.de
France & Benelux: les presses du reel, Dijon,www.lespressesdureel.com
United Kingdom: Art Data, London,
www.artdata.co.uk
USA: RAM Publications & Distribution, Santa Monica,
www.rampub.com