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Artist's Mother Spits into His Face for Art
25 Jun
Summary
- Artist's recurring performance with his mother spans decades.
- His acclaimed work "The Visitors" is a 21st-century art highlight.
- Exhibition explores blurred lines of reality, performance, and emotion.
Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson's first major Australian exhibition, "Mercy," is currently on display at Melbourne's NGV, featuring his impactful video installations.
A central piece is "Me and My Mother," a performance initiated in 2000 where Kjartansson's mother repeatedly spits at him. This work has been restaged every five years, capturing their ageing process and evolving into a meditation on love and mortality.
The exhibition also highlights "The Visitors," a 2019 Guardian-praised nine-screen installation filmed at New York's Rokeby Farm. This piece features musicians performing individual parts of a haunting song, creating a cathartic experience that has garnered a significant cult following.
Kjartansson's art consistently navigates the intersection of authenticity and performance, irony and sincerity, and comedy and tragedy. His work, influenced by his father's philosophy that "it's beautiful and sad to be a human being," often uses music as an emotional anchor.
Collaborations with musicians from Sigur Rós, Múm, and Aaron and Bryce Dessner, as well as references to painting, film, and politics, enrich his practice. The exhibition title, "Mercy," reflects the dualities of grace and violence, beauty and nothingness, evident in works like "Scenes from Western Culture" and "No Tomorrow."
