Exhibitions

RAGNAR KJARTANSSON: THE VISITORS

Frist Art Museum / 919 Broadway November 18, 2016 - February 12, 2017

Ragnar Kjartansson

Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s hypnotic and playful video installation The Visitors explores a wide range of human emotions, conveyed through the repetition of a single haunting melody as played by the artist and other musicians spread through the 43-room Rokeby Farm, a nearly 200-year-old house in the Hudson Valley. Combining Kjartansson’s interests in music, endurance, and beauty, the hourlong nine-screen video has been called “a generational masterpiece” by the Boston Globe. The seductive music, combined with the shabby elegance of the house and the isolation of each performer, creates a reflection on the nature of collaboration, the character and spirit of the home, and the emotions that can be conveyed within a series of nuanced repetitions. 

Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors was organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.

Image credit: Ragnar Kjartansson. The Visitors, 2012. Nine-channel video projection, 64 minutes. Photo: Elísabet Davids. Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik