Iceland review - 2019, Qupperneq 99

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Iceland Review
me “On the surface, it looks like my works are becoming
increasingly cloying and saccharine, but really, they’re
dealing with an enormous darkness.”
Landscapes that shaped history
Eldhraun lava field, where Death is Elsewhere was
filmed, has an enormously dark history of its own.
“Eldhraun, to me, is the craziest part of Iceland,”
says Ragnar. “It’s the lava that created democracy
and changed the world.” The field was formed during
the catastrophic Laki volcanic eruption in 1783. The
volcano spewed an ash cloud so dense that it affected
weather all around the globe for years afterwards. It
caused a famine in France which contributed greatly
to civil unrest and eventually culminated in the French
Revolution. “It was such an immense disaster. Today it’s
just quiet and pretty, but this landscape changed the
world. It’s a landscape that Justin Bieber was running
around in without thinking about it at all. That’s
fascinating to me.”
According to Ragnar, foreign visitors in general
connect differently to Iceland’s ever-changing volcanic
landscapes than locals do. “We have a lot of landscapes
in Iceland that were formed after settlement. I don’t
connect with landscape through studying its geology,
I want to know who built the farm on that hill and who
was killed on the next hill. We understand Iceland’s
landscapes in the context of stories.”
Sample artist
In Death is Elsewhere, Ragnar and his collaborators
pulled inspiration from his bookshelves. It’s an apt
metaphor for the way his art is densely woven with
references to other artists and art history. “I was raised
in 90s sample culture and sampling comes naturally to
me. It’s a key element in everything I do: cooperation
with other artists as well as other people at other times
in history.” According to Ragnar, you don’t need to
study art history to enjoy his work, but why wouldn’t
you? “People don’t have to do any homework before
seeing my work, but doing this kind of homework isn’t
boring. Every book you read, every movie you see
augments the way you perceive other art. Even pop
music gains depth if you know the history behind it.
Take Taylor Swift: understanding country music and
the development of Nashville helps you understand
what Taylor Swift is trying to do. Everything is part of a
larger history.”
Bold-faced liar
Visually speaking, Ragnar’s scenes emit a certain
timeless glamour. It’s an aesthetic that self-consciously
highlights the relationship between truth and lies. This
relationship is integral to his work, but paradoxically
also of no consequence. “I’ve worked with this aesthetic
for a long time, the liar’s aesthetic. I’m creating
circumstances that aren’t true but become true
through the performance.” He goes on to explain that
by staging scenes, you make them - for lack of a better
word - real. “Just by hauling all of us out to that field,
the guys coming over from the States and everything
that entails, to walk around some cameras – by doing it,
with the weather and the summer night and the cold –
all of a sudden, all the pretence becomes reality. It’s the
truth in the lie.”
Growing up with both parents working in theatre,
Ragnar’s always had a different relationship with
truth than most. “While I was studying at the Iceland
Academy of the Arts, there was all this focus on
being true and real. That was a problem for me, to
connect with that. I grew up in the theatre and I don’t
understand how one thing can be truer than another,
that pretence isn’t true.” According to Ragnar, all art
is pretence anyway, so how can one thing be realer than
another? “Is Bruce Springsteen truer than Queen?
Just because he stages himself by wearing jeans and
a t-shirt, is that any truer than dressing like a king?
I don’t think so. It’s all staged.” Ragnar is not only
fascinated with the veracity of a staged reality but
also the way we still believe that we value truth over
pretence. Ultimately, according to Ragnar, “it’s the
basis of everything: our culture, our religion.”
Time and time again
Several of Ragnar’s works deal in some way with
repetition and time. His Venice Biennale performance
involved painting the same model once a day for
six months. He has recorded his mother spitting in
his face at five-year intervals. Later this year, he’s
repeating a performance originally created in 2011,
where a full orchestra and cast perform the final scene
of The Marriage of Figaro over and over again for 12
hours straight. Ragnar tells me that while repetition
is important in his art, he doesn’t expect audiences
to devote time to it. “You don’t need to see all the
repetitions, but the idea of time is important. If you see
an old man walking past your house every day to feed
Every book you
read, every movie
you see augments
the way you
perceive other
art.
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