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ephemeropteræ 2012/13 – Ragnar Kjartansson

Ragnar Kjartansson

Performances

Ephemeropteræ

– Songs of space, time and lust

Three chords and the truth. Someone said that was the essence of country music. Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson agrees. In is search for artistic truths Mr. Kjartansson has used music as his compass. Kjartansson’s art is in many cases based on music. On songs. Ragnar has used lines melodies and chord changes from country, blues, popular and classical music as the structural chord of many of his works. At ephemeropteræ, Ragnar performs songs about space, time and lust that shaped his art under the open sky of the Augarten.

The creative tools of Icelandic artist / pop star Ragnar Kjartansson (born 1976), member of rock band Trabant, are drawings, paintings, installations, films, performative acts (often long durational and nonpublic), his media are melancholia and nostalgia. His film The Man (2011) is a portrait of the Blues legend and then 96-year old Pinetop Perkins (1913–2011) playing piano under the wide open skies of Texas. Rather than following biographical data, Kjartansson concentrates on grasping the ephemeral moment of the actual performance of Perkins.

location

Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary
TBA21–Augarten, Scherzergasse 1A, 1020 Vienna, Austria

supported by

Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein

Free admission

RELATED PROGRAM

ephemeropteræ 2012/15 – Gelatin, Helmut Meisner

ephemeropteræ 2012/14 – Simon Starling, Mike Davies

ephemeropteræ 2012/12 – Tribute to Franz West. Charles Bernstein, Tris Vonna-Michell

ephemeropteræ 2012/01 – Karl Holmqvist, Lydia Lunch, Christian Fennesz, Zavoloka

Artists

Ragnar Kjartansson