Kjartansson’s latest work suggests the impossibility of returning to the past, and therefore captures something unique about recent European politics
Ragnar Kjartansson has done it again, which shouldn’t be a surprise for an artist whose stock in trade is repetition. The celebrated Icelandic performer’s latest video, Sunday Without Love, at Luhring Augustine in New York, reprises his signature musical formula – spare lyrics and harmonies, repeated over and over, to tragicomic effect. Inspired by a souvenir postcard from his daughter’s baptism that the artist keeps on his refrigerator, the nineteen-minute video is set in an idyllic mountain valley. It depicts ten variously aged white people wearing folk costumes of indeterminate European provenance: bonnets, aprons and pink petticoats; top hats, cravats and blue blouses. Half the people play acoustic instruments while the rest loiter on the grass. Kjartansson, the song’s lead vocalist and guitarist, croons an English translation of the short comedic German song ‘Ohne Liebe Leben Lernen’ (1996). Little else transpires.
Yet, like much of Kjartansson’s work, Sunday Without Love does a lot with that little. Inside the gallery, visitors sink into its mood. “You must learn to live,” the song begins, “live without love. / Love is not good for you.” It continues: “Stop all this longing, / looking at stars. / Stay on the ground. / Hear what I say.” That’s the entire song; its un-Romantic message is in tension not only with the video’s distinctly Romantic setting but also the singer’s wistfulness. Despite the pragmatic-minded lyrics Kjartansson sings over and over, his voice conveys a deep sense of longing. It’s as if he were a brooding adolescent, locked in his bedroom, playing the same sad song on repeat. Yet what’s fascinating about the artwork, what takes it beyond mere self-pity, is how it pushes its languid wistfulness to farcical extremes: the setting’s incongruousness, the actors’ folksy cosplay, the lyrics’ insensate repetition. Living without love, the video suggests, doesn’t come at the cost of levity.
