Louisiana Poster with image from Icelandic, Ragnar Kjartansson's performance, No Tomorrow (2022), published in conjunction with Louisiana's solo exhibition in 2023 with the Icelandic artist. No Tomorrow was premiered live by Kjartansson (b. 1976) in 2017 shortly after Donald Trump's inauguration as president of the United States, while the version here was filmed a few months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
It's beautiful, it's hopeful, it's trivial, it's sad. "Oh babe, no tormorrow," the women sing with both fervor and the greatest naturalness. In the kaleidoscopic guitar ballet, the dancers circle around us in a tight, choreographic composition. The work's roots in the dance and singing film genre are clear. The genre flourished in the United States during the economic depression of the 1930s and again during World War II.
The lyrics are a collage of sentences from the erotic literary treasure in English translations, partly from the short novel, No Tomorrow (Point de Lendemain, 1777) by the French writer Vivant Denon (1747-1825), partly from the ancient poet, Sappho (610 -570 BCE)
Kjartansson's emotional and political commitment to the world is reflected in the works. They contain his loving, humorous and critical dialogue with Western culture – our self-understanding, successes, clichés, failures, melancholy, confusion, hope and absurdities. Nuanced reflections on masculinity appear in both work and exhibition in a thematic range from existential pain to aggressive world politics, which also includes the Danish colonialization of the artist's homeland, Iceland.
The works oscillate ambiguously precisely between the existential and political seriousness and the pop lightness. With Kjartansson, you usually have to both cry and laugh. The tension between tragedy and comedy is the artist's signature.
At Louisiana, the exhibition with Ragnar Kjartansson falls in continuation of major presentations of other main figures in the contemporary art field of multimedia practices, where performance, video, sound and other media are united, e.g. Marina Abramović, Pipilotti Rist, Mika Rottenberg and Arthur Jafa.
Dimensions: 84.1 x 59.4 cm
Material: The poster is printed on 130 g coated paper
Select a frame to see the poster framed. If the poster is purchased with a frame, we will frame the poster for you.
Frame: 12 mm
Material: Frame in solid oak and with high-quality acrylic glass.
Please note that a wooden frame is a natural product, so there may be variations in the structure of the wood.