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until 23.08. | #0102ARTatBerlin | König Galerie is pleased to announce an exhibition of the artist Ragnar Kjartansson in the St. Agnes church from 27th June until 23rd August 2015.
Here’s what happened: You meet someone and play them your current favourite song, only to find out that it’s their favourite, too. Yes! Then you listen to it forever – or at least for six hours. If you don’t just have a weakness for pop music, but also for melancholy, and if you’re also a visual artist called Ragnar Kjartansson, then you might ask the band (in this case, The National), whether they would like to play the song (in this case, Sorrow) in New York’s MoMA PS1 non-stop for six consecutive hours – and then you make a film about the whole thing. This is the impact of these six hours: Exhaustion sets in, the song begins to change under the weight of time and the musicians begin to experiment cautiously. There are clashes and friction between pathos and irony, trance-like states set in and break off, until a new, collective experience between emotion and reflection, of presence and duration becomes possible. And if you prefer, you could also simply hear and see a literally wonderful concert.
A Lot of Sorrow took place at MoMA PS1, as part of Sunday Sessions.
Ragnar Kjartansson (b. 1976) lives and works in Reykjavík. He has had solo exhibitions at institutions including the New Museum, New York, ThyssenBornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Hangar Biococca, Milan, Frankfurter Kunstverein, and the BAWAG Contemporary, Vienna. The National consists of vocalist Matt Berninger fronting two pairs of brothers: Aaron (guitar, bass, piano) and Bryce Dessner (guitar), and Scott (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums). Their first full-lengths The National and Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers preceded their signing to Beggars Banquet in 2004. Alligator (2005) raised their profile as The National grew into an incendiary live band. Boxer (2007) sold over three times as many copies as its predecessor and saw them transformed from underground stars into a rock institution. High Violet (2010) released on 4AD brought the band global critical and commercial success.
Vernissage: 26. June, 18 – 0 Uhr
Exhibition period: Saturday, June 27th until Sunday, August 23rd, 2015
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Photo credit: Ragnar Kjartansson – Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York & i8 gallery, Reykjavik
Ragnar Kjartansson – König Galerie – Kunst in Berlin ART@Berlin
