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BORCH Editions
Ragnar Kjartansson
Ragnar Kjartansson
Ragnar Kjartansson
Ragnar Kjartansson engages multiple artistic mediums, creating video installations, live performances, paintings, drawings, and prints that draw upon a myriad of historical and cultural references.
An underlying pathos and irony connect his works, and they are deeply influenced by the comedy and tragedy of classical theater. Kjartansson blurs the distinctions between mediums, approaching his painting practice as performance, likening his films to paintings, and his performances to sculpture. Throughout, Kjartansson conveys an interest in beauty and its banality, and he uses durational, repetitive performance as a form of exploration.
Image Credit:
Ragnar Kjartansson carving a woodblock for Creative Space
When I visited Niels and the printshop the first time, I felt—why am I not living this life? Being here every day, having lunch with these people? Per Kirkeby was there, in a wheelchair, working at a table. I really felt that history, and I was totally enchanted. The desire to make prints really had very much to do with working there, with those people, and stepping into that life for some period of time.
Ragnar Kjartansson in No Plan at All, 2021, ed. by Niels Borch Jensen & Susan Tallman, Hatje Cantz Verlag
Masterprinter Julie Dam printing Ragnar Kjartansson's VORES KÆRLIGHED
A Woodblock for Ragnar Kjartansson's Creative Space
VORES KÆRLIGHED 1 (detail)
Ragnar Kjartansson was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1976 and lives and works in Reykjavík. He has been collaborating with BORCH Editions since 2016.
Recent solo exhibitions of his work include Museo Tamayo, Mexico City and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark (both 2024); Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich (2023); De Pont Museum, Amsterdam (2022); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (2021) Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (both 2020).
Kjartansson's work is part of international public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and the National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik.
Ragnar Kjartansson represented Iceland at the 2009 Venice Biennale.
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