Brilliant Ideas Episode #48: Ragnar Kjartansson
Warm Nihilist Singing the Sorrow
Creation begins with the familiar things around you. When sustained, the stories thus created become a foundation for creating another world. Ragnar Kjartansson has held exhibitions in world-famous art institutions and received invitations from all over the world, and yet he still insists on staying and making art in his hometown of Reykjavik, Iceland because of his belief that he naturally became an artist in the process of growing up in his hometown.
He says his muse is his homeland, Iceland, and the time he spent growing up there. His father a director and an actor and his mother an actress, the backstage was always a playground for young Kjartansson. Meet Ragnar Kjartansson, an artist whose inspiration comes from fantasies and the pure hearts of Icelanders who still believe in elves in the forest, through Brilliant Ideas Episode #48 by Bloomberg and Hyundai Motor.
Watch Brilliant Ideas Episode #48: Ragnar Kjartansson
GO >Metaphor of Repetition
Kjartansson covers multiple genres including video, painting, and drawing. He is, however, referred to by others and himself as a performance artist, as he creates a situation as an all-in-one creator who directs, acts, and plans his performances. His works cover a broad spectrum that can hardly be defined; one of the keywords that distinguish the artist’s style is “repetition.” Growing up watching rehearsals of the same scenes from backstage, rehearsing is not just a mere process but a special subject to him. Based on such experience, the artist uses repetition as a methodology for his performances to weave stories about birth, death, or family in a cyclical manner.
In <God> (2007), a 1950s-style lounge musician and a small orchestra performs the same song over and over on a stage dressed in velvet drapes. In <A lot of Sorrow>(2013-2014), American indie rock band The National performs on the stage, repeating one song for six hours. Kjartansson also repeats one performance in different situations. <Me and My Mother>(2000, 2005, 2010, 2015), one of his most representative works, is a series of videos of the artist and his mother standing next to each other. In the video, Guðrun Asmundsdottir, Kjartansson’s mother and also a famous Icelandic actress, spits on her son’s face without hesitation. The mother and son are filmed every five years with the accumulating videos showing them growing older, which leads to repetition interwoven with time. The videos show the artist as a student in 2000, who then in the 2015 video becomes a middle-aged man in a suit with a full beard. Kjartansson says he will continue this repetition five years later, and another five years after that. This reveals that repetition is not just a keyword that describes him but also a drive for him to keep making art.
Singing the sorrow
While repetition is what marks the style of Kjartansson’s works, the subject of his works is mainly about sorrow. The people in his performances play minor scales. The artist’s favorite key is E minor, which is typically used for expressing melancholy. To him, the E minor scale is the most beautiful melody. At the time Kjartansson started to learn about music, true feelings arose when he heard the E minor scale for the first time.
His performance <Woman in E> (2016) features a woman in a gown with shiny gold scales. She plays the guitar and sings an E minor scale song all day long. The round gold stage she is standing on spins like a display table. Without skipping a day during the whole exhibition period, she sings as if haunted by imagination and lost in concerns, worries, and thoughts. When Kjartansson performed <A lot of Sorrow> at MoMA PS1 in New York, the band <The National> sang a song titled “Sorrow” for six hours straight. By showing the band repeating the song in front of the audience, the artist spoke directly on the idea of sorrow and brought it to the forefront through the act of repetition.
Pessimistically declaring, “Sorrow conquers everything,” Kjartansson asserts that art cannot change people’s hearts. Nonetheless, he continues to make art and look at the world with brilliant eyes. Besides, his songs of sorrow are far from expressions of desperation; the tunes are tender and somehow sweet because of, in his wife’s words, a “warm nihilism” in his works. His tender, minor scales on sorrow will play on for years to come. ■with ARTINPOST
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<The End - Venice, November> 2009
Performance installation. Six month performance during the 2009 Venice Biennale during which 144 paintings were made Commissioned by the Center for Icelandic Art.Photo Rafael Pinho ⓒRagnar Kjartansson; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.
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<A Lot of Sorrow> 2013-2014
Single channel video edition of 10 and 2 artist's proofs duration: 6 hours, 9 minutes, 35 seconds A Lot of Sorrow took place at MoMA PS1, as part of Sunday Sessions. Sunday Sessions Photo Elisabet Davids ⓒRagnar Kjartansson and The National; Courtesy of the artists, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik
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<Me and My Mother 2015> 2015
Single channel video with sound edition of 6 and 2 artist's proofs Duration: 20 minutes 25 seconds ⓒRagnar Kjartansson; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.
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<Me and My Mother 2000> 2000
Video artist's proofs Duration: 10 minutes ⓒRagnar Kjartansson; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.
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<The Visitors> 2012
Nine channel video projection edition of 6 and 2 artist's proofs Duration: 64 minutes Photo Elisabet Davids ⓒRagnar Kjartansson; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.
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<World Light - The Life and Death of an Artist> 2015
Four-channel video looped Duration: 8 hours 27 minutes 22 seconds Commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna ⓒRagnar Kjartansson; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.
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<Rocky Mountains> 2009
Five channel video projection Duration: 30 minutes 30 seconds ⓒRagnar Kjartansson; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.
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Ragnar Kjartansson and Kjartan Sveinsson <The Explosive Sonics of Divinity (Der Klang der Offenbarung des Göttlichen)> 2014
Volksbühne Theater, Berlin, Germany. Performed by the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg and the Film Choir Berlin photos by Thomas Aurin ⓒ Ragnar Kjartansson and Kjartan Sveinsson; Courtesy of the artists, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik
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<World Light - The Life and Death of an Artist> 2015
Four-channel video looped Duration: 8 hours 27 minutes 22 seconds Commissioned by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna ⓒRagnar Kjartansson; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik.
Profile
Photo: Elísabet Davids
Ragnar Kjartansson, the son of a playwright, director and actor, grew up in the genre of "play" from when he was young. Growing up, Kjartansson watched play rehearsals and realized that the same lines, dialogue could be delivered differently depending on the actor’s personality and style. He grew interest in the connection between language and individual characteristics and he was fascinated by theater. He went on to concentrating on making art works and now he is a globally-acclaimed for video and performance art.
Born in 1976, in Iceland, Ragnar Kjartansson now works and lives at Reykjavik. He had has several exhibitions including at the Barbican Centre, London, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, New Museum, New York. He has also participated international events in the global art scene as the Venice Biennale, Manifesta and is recognized for winning several awards, one of which is the Malcolm McLaren Award.
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