Folksong was a ten-day performance. For six hours a day, Ragnar Kjartansson will stand in his tableau vivant of autumn trees and setting sun, singing his heart out to passers-by. The work is a European's bona fide take on America, loaded with clichés from different cultural productions. Dressed in cocktail wear and braced with a shiny red hollow body and a powerful amplifier, Kjartansson performs over and over again a short verse from an unknown but strangely familiar song.
This performance was a homage to the great German word “Weltschmerz” and the extreme romanticism and expressionism that goes along with it and that is also present in heavy metal music. Therefore, a singly bass guitar player stands inside the booth titled “Weltschmerz” and plays a lonely tune – a feeling portrayed in a tableau vivant.
Kjartansson works with Laddi, a comedian, who has been present throughout the lives of the generation of Icelanders of which the artist is part. Guilt Trip in a way is a tribute to Laddi. It would not have been conceived with any other actor. Kjartasson highlights the paradox of the actor by choosing a person, who is only known as a multitude of identities...
A performance video where small children in summer camp meet death in the cemetery on a beautiful summer day. This is a happening, the children are not acting. The children talk openly with death.
Performance / installation at Galerie Adler. Dressed a a knight, Ragnar Kjartansson is playing a piano from which one can hear a woman's deperate wailing.
Performance/installation. A month long
performance set in an old abandoned Theater/Dancehall in the south of
Iceland. On the stage there is a knight singing the blues. The house is full
of old tape recorders, drawings, paintings and scupltures. This Tableau was
performed for six hours a day during the period of the Reykjavik Art
Festival.
Video DVD, 4min. Ragnar Kjartansson's mother is spitting him in the face.
Performance. 5min. A Tableau piece based on a story about two Icelandic musicians, a model and a carpenter having a party in L.A in the seventies. Cocaine, nudity and adultery.
Performance. 8 min. Collaboration with
Gabríella Friðriksdóttir. The Artists are dressed in nylon stockings and
have bread on their feet. Ragnar Kjartansson plays and sings songs based on
the works of Icelandic rock star Bubbi Morteins. Gabriella is on the floor
going berserk with an old fiddle. Emotional meltdown. He sings: "Outside my
girl is crazy, like a raven with a broken wing"
Video/sound/photographs/ installation. Collaboration with Magnús Sigurðarson. This is a piece about friendship, trust and the scars of the heart. The show is based on black and white sensual photographs of the artists in positions of defeat and a video where the artists are drunk and in a personal mood in a set where they look like the thieves on the cross. Then there is a sound piece where 10 of Reykjavik´s best young troubadours sing the song " Scars of the Heart". On the opening all ten of them where singing in the space at the same time.
Performance. 1hour.Three girls sit by a fire in a winter landscape in a window on Reykjavik´s main street. From loudspeakers, we hear the wind howling. A horrible creature appears, threatens the girls, they scream and the lights go out. Ten seconds later, the lights are back on an the same scene starts again; the girls sit by the fire, the creature appears etc. This live loop goes on for about an hour and the scene is repeated about 100 times.
Performance. 2hours. The artist steps into a garden armed with a guitar. His assistant awaits him at a small hole in the ground. The artist steps into the hole. The assistant fills the hole up to the artist's waist and the artist starts singing a blue tune over and over. The lyrics: "Satan is real. He's working for me"
Ragnar Kjartansson sings a slow tune, intonation the phrase "Sorrow Conquers Happiness" over and over again until he drifts off into a trance-like condition.
Perfomance (2 hours). A collaboration with Gabriella Fridriksdottir. Two pathetic creatures cover themselves in bandages, suffer, hit themselves, smoke and make modern music.
This is a piece about the time when Iceland was a Danish colony. The video shows a Danish merchant beating up an Icelandic peasant. Inbetween we see tourist pictures of Copenhagen where blood is pouring over the city.
Performance/installation. An Opera Ragnar Kjartansson performed a capella 4 hours a day over a ten day period. The Opera is set in a little rococo style theatre where the audience walk in and out. The opera singer eats, drinks and performs dramatic stunts while singing constantly.
Þorvaldur Gröndal - Drums
Viðar H. Gíslason - Gitarre / Bass
Hlynur A. Vilmarsson - Keyboard
Gísli Galdur - Turntable
Emotional
2005
1. Overture
2. Maria (-> play)
3. Nasty Boy (-> play)
4. I Love You Why?
5. Pump You Up
6. Loving me
7. Galdur
8. Emotional Meltdown
9. The One
10. Arms
Trabant á Bessastöðum (12T 002) 2004
1. Enter Spacebar
2. Lady Elephant
3. DC Yeah
4. Ávarp
Ballet (KON01) 2002
1. Pomp og
Kringumstæður
2. Popster
3. Hlið Dögunar
4. Víbrar
5. Einhyrningur
6. Dauðinn og Riddarinn
7. Réttlætisgyðjan
8. Hænan
9. Róbó
10. Vá
Superman 7" (TMT 07) 2002
Side a:
Superman (radio edit)
Side b:
Superman (Thor remix)
Superman (TMT 07cds) 2002
1. Superman 7"
radio edit
2. Superman
(OZY Thule remix)
3. Superman (Worm is
Green remix)
4. María
5. Polka DJ
Enter Spacebar Remixes (TMT 06cds) 2001
1. Original Mix
2. Q Burns
abstract message mix
3. Bodenstandig 2000
Schwert und Skelett
mix
4. Thor the happy dude
mix
5. Einóma texture mix
6. iLO rug mix
7. Lady Elephant
8. Enter Spacebar
Enter Stereo mix
Moment of Truth - 2001
1. Enter Spacebar
(-> play)
2. Org Org
3. Moment Of Truth
4. Pre-Pop-Loop
5. Bluesbraker
6. old Elgar
7. Bahama Banana
8. Traktor Intro
9. Lady Elephant
10. Hi-Tec Hurricane
11. Retard Part 1
12. Retart Part 2
13. Himnalalala
14. Happy Sunny Song
15. Superman
Enter Spacebar 12" vinyl (TMTP 06) 2001
Side a: Enter Spacebar Side b: Lady Elephant