{"id":1951,"date":"2013-03-16T03:45:58","date_gmt":"2013-03-16T03:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raulmourao.com\/blog\/?p=1951"},"modified":"2013-03-16T03:45:58","modified_gmt":"2013-03-16T03:45:58","slug":"ragnar-kjartansson-the-visitors-luhring-augustine-feb-1-mar-23-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archive.raulmourao.com\/blog\/?p=1951","title":{"rendered":"Ragnar Kjartansson > The Visitors @ Luhring Augustine \/ Feb 1 – Mar 23, 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Luhring Augustine is pleased to present its second solo exhibition by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. This show marks the New York debut of Kjartansson\u2019s most recent project,\u00a0The Visitors, a nine-channel video installation based on a musical performance staged in upstate New York at Rokeby Farm. For this new work, the artist assembled a group of his closest friends, some of the most renowned musicians from Reykjavik and beyond. A depiction of individual creative minds at work and a baring of extreme collective emotion,\u00a0The Visitors\u00a0continues Kjartansson\u2019s use of durational performance to explore the persona of the performer.<\/p>\n

Kjartansson first came to know Rokeby Farm while visiting the Hudson Valley area in 2007 and has become a frequent visitor. A site remarkable for its long and eclectic history and its state of romantic disrepair, Rokeby Farm serves as a painterly backdrop to the film\u2019s eloquent homage to friendship. The home has stood for almost two hundred years and is run by family members who have become the artist\u00b4s friends and also perform in\u00a0The Visitors. They have made it their goal to preserve the traces of the past and welcome bohemia and spirituality in all its forms.<\/p>\n

The title of the piece is derived from the 1981 album\u00a0The Visitors\u00a0by Swedish pop band ABBA; the album was to be the group\u2019s final record as divorce and internal strain ended their collaboration. With lyrics from a poem by artist \u00c1sd\u00eds Sif Gunnarsd\u00f3ttir, Ragnar\u00b4s ex-wife, and musical arrangement by the artist and Dav\u00ed\u00f0 \u00de\u00f3r J\u00f3nsson, Kjartansson has staged a single-take production in which his fellow musicians perform the piece for a total of 64 minutes. Each of the nine projections in\u00a0The Visitors\u00a0features a participant inhabiting a separate setting in the home or on the grounds of Rokeby Farm, and when viewed together the individual scenes create a layered portrait which the artist aptly describes as a \u201cfeminine nihilistic gospel song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ragnar Kjartansson was born in 1976 and lives and works in Reykjavik, Iceland.\u00a0The Visitorsrecently debuted at the Migros Museum f\u00fcr Gegenwartskunst. Other recent solo exhibitions of his work have been held at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Frankfurter Kunstverein, and the BAWAG Contemporary in Vienna.\u00a0Song, his first American solo museum show, was organized by the Carnegie Museum of Art in 2011, and has since traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami and is currently on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Kjartansson was the recipient of Performa\u2019s 2011 Malcolm McLaren Award for his performance of\u00a0Bliss, a twelve-hour live loop of the final aria of Mozart\u2019s\u00a0The Marriage of Figaro, and in 2009 he was the youngest artist to represent Iceland at the Venice Biennale\u2019s International Art Exhibition.<\/p><\/div>\n

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http:\/\/www.luhringaugustine.com<\/div>\n