Co-presented with Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary TBA21
Renowned Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s 2012 work The Visitors is a nine-channel video installation that occupied the entire Sala Catedral of the Faena Art Center. Described as a hymn to the feminine by TBA21 curator Daniela Zyman, the performance piece entrances and envelopes the audience within cyclical manifestations of song and action. The visitors in this case are eight performers (including the artist) and one choir, who occupy nine different locations at Rokeby Farm in upstate New York to perform one song simultaneously. The eerie incantations of their feminine ways (taken from the lyrics of a song written by Kjartansson’s ex-partner Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir) echoed through the crumbling mansion; the weight of these appropriated words highlighting the indelible presence of the past. The Visitors is a feminist proposition in nine parts that engulfs the public in song.