Migros Museum

The Visitors, a 9-channel video installation of the artist Ragnar Kjartansson, transports visitors into the peculiar universe of a historical villa on the Hudson River in Upstate New York. The starting point for this project – which is shaped by Kjartansson’s enthusiasm for music, his interest in sustained performance, as well as an emotional experience of art – are texts by the artist Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir that Kjartansson and Davíð Þór Jónsson have set to music. For The Visitors, he had the song jointly performed by several musicians from his own circle of friends in various situations in the 43 rooms of the Villa Rokeby. Each of the nine projections highlights one of the rooms and one performer – with one exception: Outside on the porch of the house are the inhabitants in the role of choir and sonic artillery. The individual scenes thus join up into a space-spanning, filmic tableau, whereby this unique visual and acoustic arrangement shows a complex portrait of the house as well as its (temporary) residents, movingly expressing the experiences of love and loss, separation, and reunion.

The Visitors can be read as a homage to friendship, yet it is also an ode on longing and loss. The Visitors is a reference to the title of Abba’s eponymous album that appeared in 1981, which was to be their last. Shortly after the publication the successful pop band broke up. In contrast, his work The Visitors brought Kjartansson international renown, and it was acclaimed by the press. For example, the British Guardian even described the work as the ‘Best Artwork of the 21st Century’. With The Visitors a work is presented that illustrates the role of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst as a commissioner of new works and a collecting institution, on the one hand, and can be understood as an outstanding example of the unique working method of the artist, on the other