Final Weeks for "Black Box: Ragnar Kjartansson" at Hirshhorn

April 3, 2015
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Currently on view in the Black Box space for moving-image art at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Ragnar Kjartansson's video work, "S.S. Hangover" (2013-2014) closes April 19. It is the first museum presentation of the Icelandic artist's work in Washington, D.C.

Running a little more than four hours, the two-channel work presents part of a performance Kjartansson staged at the Venice Biennale in 2013. A brass band performs a "meloncholic brass fanfare" in a small wooden boat that is piloted along an arcaded canal, picking up and dropping off the musicians as it makes its way between piers. The boat is a 1934 Icelandic fishing vessel, adapted to include Greek and Venetian references.

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