Death is Elsewhere

The video Mercy (2005) presents an alt-country ode consisting of a single lyric — "Oh why do I keep on hurting you" — which Kjartansson, standing alone with a guitar, sings over and over in front of the camera like an actor perfecting his role. Now plaintive, now crass, now searching, now pleading, the line takes on a haunting quality not quite undercut by the tune’s tongue-in-cheek twang. The work introduced a recurring motif in the artist’s repertoire: the slick-haired singer, a persona Kjartansson has honed in real life as front man for the synth-heavy Reykjavík rock band Trabant, now on hiatus. The band’s performances — as seen on YouTube, anyway — have been blowout affairs, full of rock ’n’ roll swagger and screaming teenage fans. Mercy was a first step toward connecting this sassy streak with the artist’s maturing explorations of Icelandic identity.

No Tomorrow is a new video installation by Kjartansson, choreographer Margrét Bjarnadóttir, and composer Bryce Dessner. Spanning six screens that encircle the room, the installation surrounds viewers with a performance of spatial music written for eight dancers with eight guitars. Recorded from the center of the performers’ space, the installation is kaleidoscopic, capturing the dancers as they weave within each screen and across the channels; their movements and melodies ranging from pastorale to rock and roll. Combining a variety of classic Western references – blue jeans and white t-shirts, the draped silk curtains of mid-20th century song and dance films, as well as lyrics drawn from the Archaic Greek poet Sappho and adventurer Vivant Denon, two sensualists millennia apart – the work spins notions of idealization and iconography.

A celebration of creativity, community, and friendship, The Visitors (2012) documents a 64-minute durational performance Kjartansson staged with some of his closest friends at the romantically dilapidated Rokeby Farm in upstate New York. Each of the nine channels shows a musician or group of musicians, including some of Iceland’s most renowned as well as members of the family that owns Rokeby Farm, performing in a separate space in the storied house and grounds; each wears headphones to hear the others. As the music begins and repeats, individual players stop, start, and move between rooms. Viewed together, the individual videos present an ensemble performance Kjartansson calls a “feminine nihilistic gospel song.” The piece itself sets lyrics from a poem by artist Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, Ragnar´s ex-wife, to a musical arrangement by the artist and Icelandic musician Davíð Þór Jónsson; the title comes from a 1981 album from Swedish pop band ABBA, meant to be its last.

Kjartansson appears bare-chested and buried waist-deep in a Reykjavik public park. Strumming a guitar, he plaintively sings the line—“Satan is real; he's working for me”—repeatedly for 64 minutes. As he does so, children frolic around him.

Ragnar Kjartansson meets with American blues musician Pinetop Perkins in a field near Pinetop's home in Austin, Texas. Ragnar films Pinetop in the sunset, as he plays a piano and reminisces about his life and career.

Sigur Rós have given a dozen film makers the same modest budget and asked them to create whatever comes into their head when they listen to songs from the band's album Valtari. The idea is to bypass the usual artistic approval process and allow people utmost creative freedom. These 16 films are the result. Sad, funny, beautiful and, occasionally, plain bewildering, they represent just some of the available emotional responses to this most contemplative album.