Written by: Renny McFadin Ragnar Kjartansson, born in Reykjavik, Iceland, tends to encapsulate the entirety of mediums that art has to offer in his works. Literary, musical, theatrical, technical, technological, filmic … you name it. This can partially be accredited to his childhood. Being raised by an actress and a director/playwright does tend to have artistic consequences. Kjartansson describes his works as pieces that are “always about a feeling, but there’s no story.” So, he likes to tap into the concept of human nature to help emulate and create feelings of happiness and transcendence. His tragicomic works “combine sorrow and happiness, horror and beauty, drama and levity” (Artsy). Basically, his works aspire to reach a place of utopia within the human mind. The execution of this is always solid, the medium, however, can differ greatly. According to “The Broad”, Kjartansson’s works can be split up into three distinctive mediums. Live, recorded, or immersive. Live, in the sense of only done once, in the flesh. It’s there, then it’s gone, therefore its living. Recorded in the sense of his renowned, The Visitors (2012). A set of videos of nine musicians, repeating the same lyrics, all in the same household. All of the performers take on different instruments and interpret the tempo, and performance of the lyrics in unique ways. All nine of these videos are screened in a gallery at once, and the experience can be described as an “entirely absorbing ensemble piece that was alternately tragic and joyful, meditative and clamorous, and that swelled in feeling from melancholic fugue to redemptive gospel choir” (Hilarie Sheets). Lastly, immersive. Immersive like his piece Woman in E (2016), where a woman in a gold dress on a pedestal strums the chord E on a guitar within the gallery. Immersive as in present in the gallery. Obviously, Kjartansson’s repertoire of practiced works is immensely large, and immensely impressive. He continues to make works that poke and prod at the human mind and conscience today. And continues to spark our interest with his “opulent, ironic, and deeply human” (Artsy) works.
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AuthorsNATALIE KIM is a junior at MLWGS and is committed to informing others of history being made in the art world. Archives
April 2019
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