Bending in pink neon, "Scandinavian Pain" is Ragnar Kjartansson's humorous advertising sign for Nordic melancholy, which has become a popular brand in the global culture industry, among other things due to the works of the Norwegian painter, Edvard Munch (1863-1944) and the Swedish author, August Strindberg (1849-1912). The work is part of Louisiana's major exhibition with Kjartansson in 2023, Epic waste of Love and Understanding.
Kjartansson's neon sign also lights up as a festive encouragement - and as an ambiguous comment on all the melancholy and self-pity here in one of the world's most privileged regions.
Ragnar Kjartansson (b. 1976) has long since distinguished himself internationally as one of contemporary art's most important voices, and Louisiana's exhibition contains both new and older works in a multitude of media, from drawing and painting to performance and large, spatial works with film and music.
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 lightness of popular culture. With Kjartansson, you usually have to both cry and laugh. The tension between tragedy and comedy is the artist's signature – for example in the work Me and My Mother from 2015, which many will know from Louisiana's collection.
At Louisiana, the exhibition with Ragnar Kjartansson follows on from major presentations by 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: 42 x 59.4 cm
Select a frame to see the poster framed. If the poster is purchased with a frame, we will frame the poster for you.
Frame width black: 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.