[ad_1]
COPENHAGEN — Take the lengthy practice north of Copenhagen to the small city Humlebæk and stroll a couple of minutes to the Øresund Sound, and also you’ll end up on the Louisiana Museum of Fashionable Artwork, one of the vital and well-liked museums in Scandinavia. Simply outdoors is what appears like a marble column, with a flame atop. Look extra fastidiously, and also you’ll discover that the flame is static. Knock on the column, and also you’ll understand it’s made from wooden. This monumental piece outdoors this monumental museum is an phantasm. You may name it an “Epic Waste of Love and Understanding,” as chiseled on the column.
The set up references an argument between the artist, Ragnar Kjartansson, and his spouse. It’s also the identify of Epic Waste of Love and Understanding, the primary Scandinavian retrospective of the favored Icelandic artist, which opened this month on the museum. The present performs with energy, humor, repetition, and self-effacement, generally trying outward at world leaders and different occasions trying on the absurdities of the lifetime of a celebrity artist.
On the exhibition’s entrance is an array of a whole lot of white and blue porcelain salt and pepper shakers. “Guilt and worry are type of the essence of the whole lot,” Kjartansson famous on the press preview, alongside curator Tine Colstrup, whereas pointing to the Western appropriation of Chinese language porcelain types. And but, to me, feelings make life fascinating, when sprinkled fastidiously.
These feelings, together with others, present by in “Horrible, Horrible,” a reenactment of two makes an attempt to deface Ukrainian painter Ilya Repin’s “Ivan the Horrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581.” Thought-about by some to misrepresent the Tsar and his historical past in the best way he’s depicted killing his son, Ivan Ivanovich, the portray was attacked in 1913 and as soon as once more in 2018. The movies current the 2 moments facet by facet, shifting from a silent meditation on the portray to a sudden burst of violence, resistance, and a reminder that artwork can have great political energy.
A lot of Kjartansson’s work combines dry humor with a sobering examination of energy and violence. “Hitler’s Loge” is a sculpture comprised of a Führerloge, or viewers field, constructed by Hitler to be used in theaters and sports activities venues. The sculpture is a sequence of flat boards, in the long run, however they’re outstanding due to their earlier house owners — one a pop star and the opposite a genocider. In 2006, shortly earlier than the monetary collapse, Icelandic buyers had been shopping for properties throughout Europe, and Icelandic pop star Helgi Björns purchased a theater in Berlin, which contained on such Führerloge. A marble slab explains the historical past: JEG RINGEDE TIL HELGI BJÖRNS HAN OVERBRAGTE MIG HITLERS LOGE RAGNAR KJARTANSSON 2006. (“I referred to as Helgi Björns. He offered me with Hitler’s loge, Ragnar Kjartansson 2006.”)
The present additionally consists of “Bangemand” (Scaredman), a brand new efficiency piece by which a person in a tuxedo inches alongside a ledge in worry, in addition to Kjartansson’s best-known work, “The Guests,” a 2012 video that meditates on loss. The title refers back to the Swedish pop band ABBA’s ultimate album and options musicians in separate rooms in an upstate New York mansion performing a music by Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, Kjartansson’s ex-wife.
Whereas these works will undoubtedly get probably the most consideration, I discovered myself drawn to a small facet gallery, the place I got here throughout “Me and My Mom,” a video sequence by which Kjartansson’s mom, Icelandic actor Gudrún Asmundsdóttir, spits on him. They’re good, juicy spits, wealthy with saliva, guilt, worry, love, and understanding. The artist has been enduring this ritual each 5 years over the previous 20 years. I used to be reminded of his reflections on his salt and pepper shakers: “Repeat stuff after which it turns into religious. That’s what I discovered as an altar boy.”
After a pause, he added, “I’m not saying I’m a religious individual.”
An Epic Waste of Love and Understanding continues on the Louisiana Museum of Fashionable Artwork (Gl Strandvej 13, 3050 Humlebæk, Denmark) by October 22. The exhibition was curated by Tine Holstrup.
[ad_2]
