ABOUT THIS EXHIBIT
From November 3, 2018, through April 14, 2019, in the Ellen and Howard C. Katz Wing for Modern Art, guests can experience three multisensory works by the artist that explore themes of identity, melancholia, repetition, and popular culture. Known for the performative aspects of his art, Kjartansson has displayed his works in renowned museums around the world, including the Migros Museum in Switzerland, The Guggenheim in New York City, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Phoenix Art Museum becomes one of only ten American museums to welcome the addition of The Visitors to their collection.
Kjartansson was born in Reykjavik, Iceland. Growing up, his mother was an actress and his father was a director and playwright. This theater-centric upbringing would later inform his artistic practice as he experimented with durational and repetitive performance pieces, attempting to discover new meaning in the simplest of words and actions through reiteration and time progression.
IMAGE CREDIT
Ragnar Kjartansson, The Visitors, 2012. Nine-channel video. Restricted gift of the Diane and Bruce Halle Foundation to Phoenix Art Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. © 2012, Ragnar Kjartansson. All rights reserved.
ABOUT THIS EXHIBIT
The exhibition showcases three works by the artist, including The Visitors, one of Kjartansson’s best-known pieces. The hour-long, nine-screen video installation features nine performers, including Kjartansson, in different rooms of the hauntingly beautiful Rokeby Farm in New York’s Hudson Valley. Each performer is shown playing an instrument and singing a song with lyrics by Kjartansson’s ex-wife. As with many of Kjartansson’s works, the song lyrics are limited and simple, but through repetition, their meaning changes as the installation progresses, resulting in an emotionally charged and moving experience.
Also featured in the exhibition is the 40-foot long neon installation titled Scandinavian Pain, along with The End, a prime example of endurance-based art and Kjartansson’s contribution to the 2009 Venice Biennale. Secluding himself in a fourteenth-century palazzo, Kjartansson made one painting per day for six months, each depicting the same friend in a Speedo. The resulting—and rarely exhibited—144-piece installation, displayed in a salon-style space, is at once complex and over-simplified, making it a can’t-miss experience.
Ragnar Kjartansson: Scandinavian Pain & Other Myths is made possible through the generosity of The Diane and Bruce Halle Foundation. The exhibition is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Gilbert Vicario, the Selig Family Chief Curator.
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