Ragnar Kjartansson: The Sky in a Room: Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan, Italy

Fondazione Nicola Trussardi presentsThe Sky in a Room by the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson (Reykjavík, 1976). The project, staged for the church of San Carlo al Lazzaretto in Milan, was conceived in the wake of the difficult lockdown affecting the public and private lives of millions of Italians—especially the citizens of Lombardy. Accompanied by the church organ of San Carlo al Lazzaretto (also known as San Carlino), professional singers will take turns to perform an ethereal arrangement of Il cielo in una stanza, the famous song by Gino Paoli, originally released in 1960. The piece will be repeated, uninterruptedly, for six hours a day, every day, like a never-ending lullaby.

Kjartansson’s works—which alternate between video, performance, music, and painting—are characterized by a profound sense of melancholy. Often inspired by the twentieth-century traditions of Nordic theater and literature, they include references that may be traced back to the work of Tove Janson, Halldór Laxness, Edvard Munch, and August Strindberg, among others.