Ragnar Kjartansson‘s The Visitors was shot at the magnificent old Rokeby estate near New York. The performance of the musician in each individual video was recorded separately, but in the gallery the nine takes merge into a single impressive performance.
The musical experience is a celebration of creativity, community and friendship, and is named after ABBA’s last album. An exploration of separation, the lyrics are based on a poem by Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir. The music is by Ragnar Kjartansson and Davíð Þór Jónsson.
The Visitors is part of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) collection in Austria.
Ragnar Kjartansson
Ragnar Kjartansson (b. 1976, Reykjavik, Iceland) creates art that revolves around the themes of Nordic identity, melancholia and pop culture. A graduate from the Icelandic Academy of the Arts, he also studied at the Royal Academy in Stockholm. Kjartansson is a member of the Icelandic rock band Trabant.
His most recent exhibitions include The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), i8 Gallery (Reykjavik), Faurschou Foundation (Beijing), Barbican (London), Art Institute of Chicago, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and Palais de Tokyo (Paris). In 2009 he represented Iceland at the Venice Biennale.
Ragnar Kjartansson is the recent winner of the Finland’s biggest visual art prize Ars Fennica award (2019).