Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, from a family of creatives, makes video art that mixes music and performance to explore emotions.
His current show at Melbourne’s NGV international – Ragnar Kjartansson: Mercy – features eight films inspired by music videos, opera and ballet.
He uses repetition and different characters to play with ideas about performance, collaboration, and what’s real versus staged.
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Ragnar Kjartansson: video transcript
My name is Ragnar Kjartansson and I’m a visual artist.
In the beginning, my work was mainly me performing the works. Then I liked it so much, to perform, and to be in that space. There’s something beautiful about stepping out of life and going into those situations.
You know, it’s not just mind-blowingly boring – it’s actually, you get something out of it.
When people are in this nothingness, which is also like the essence of meditation or whatnot, like that there is kind nothing happening. I just always find it very poetic to see figures in situations that they’re just stuck in.
And it creates another dynamic, then if there’s a narrative situation. You’re not, like, waiting for something to happen – you know that nothing is going to happen. Although nothing happens in it, it has to have tension.
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So when I’m like at work, it’s very choreographed and everything. We have like a chart that’s almost like a cartoon story. You follow that cartoon, and like, ‘In this place there comes a drum’. So I try to keep tension within the frames.
Ragnar Kjartansson: advice for others
My main advice is to volunteer in artist-run spaces and stuff like that. To not just be too focused on your own work, but to be focused on the scene and the works of others. Then your work starts blossoming.
That’s the weird thing. That’s what I’ve noticed with myself.
When I started helping friends out, suddenly there was a community. I could make my works, I could help friends with making theirs.
It’s still like that. I still really like working in the artist-run scene in Reykjavík and stuff too.
And then as an older artist, that just keeps me fresh now, to work with people who are doing something bad-ass.
