Image: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
‘MERCY’ surveys the video and film works of multidisciplinary Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. The making of any exhibition entails many conversations—between the artist, their studio and the NGV team—to decide its shape and form.
The introduction and interview are by Amita Kirpalani, NGV Curator, Contemporary Art. Kjartansson describes his video works as closely connected to recording music and filmmaking: ‘There’s so much music around the recording of the music and filming of a piece. My video works are really related to recording in a studio. But making a film is something quite different. It’s actually, weirdly, more freeing than recording a track or song. It is to record a painting.’
‘The Visitors’ was inspired by ‘all these various manifestations of what it is to be in a band’—‘what I imagine happening in the lounge room, in the kitchen, in the bedroom. It’s a conversation.’
‘Mercy’ is the oldest work in the exhibition, although Kjartansson says he always feels that the pieces are recent: ‘I never feel like, “Oh this is from back in the day.”’
