![]() Ragnar Kjartansson is an artist of many moods. ![]() Ragnar Kjartansson is an artist of many moods. ![]() Sorrow Conquers Happiness was the refrain that Ragnar sang over and over in his recent video performance at the Living Art Museum. ![]() Scene from a recent video piece where Ragnar represents the plight of the artist as a lone gunman wandering the snow-covered highlands, occationally letting off a shot at nothing in particular. ![]() This was Ragnar's contribution to an exhibition in 2007, commemorating the nineteenth-century poet and icon of Iceland's independence struggle, Jónas Hallgrímsson. The austere past meets the frivolous present as Ragnar arranges scantily-clad "babes" on the poet's tomb. ![]() Scandinavian Pain, 2006, installation. For Momentum 2006, Ragnar Kjartansson took over an abandoned barn on the grounds of Galleri F15. On the barn’s roof he erected a large pink neon sign that read ’Scandinavian Pain’, and inside filled the building with paintings, drawings and sound, creating a kind of stage set. Inspired by such ’preachers of pain’ as Edvard Munch, Ingmar Bergman and Hallgrímur Pértursson, Kjartansson lived in the barn for a week-long performance, acting out the stereotype of the miserable Scandinavian male. ![]() Folksong, 2007, 10 Day Performance in 25th street, Chelsea, organized by Hessel Foundation. Folksong was a ten-day performance. For six hours a day, Ragnar Kjartansson will stand in his tableau vivant of autumn trees and setting sun, singing his heart out to passers-by. The work is a European's bona fide take on America, loaded with clichés from different cultural productions. Dressed in cocktail wear and braced with a shiny red hollow body and a powerful amplifier, Kjartansson performs over and over again a short verse from an unknown but strangely familiar song. LIST Icelandic Art News. Page last updated 15 January 2008. Texts and images copyright © 2008 by the authors. For inquiries and contact information see about us. |