Widely recognized as one of the most exciting and significant voices of contemporary art, Icelandic Ragnar Kjartansson (b. 1976) takes a both loving and critical look at Western culture. Love, identity, melancholy, masculinity, power and powerlessness are among the artist’s central themes.

Ragnar Kjartansson often uses repetition as a method – repeating a motif, a scene or a single strophe over a prolonged period of time. The balance between existential or political seriousness and superficial cliché invests the works with a precise, quivering ambiguity.

Mastering a multitude of genres, media and roles, Kjartansson acts as a director and a musician, a comedian and a showman, a critic and a visual artist. In his works, he uses a multitude of references – historical, art historical, literary, political and pop cultural – that all stem from a curious engagement in our dealings with the world here and now.

Lesser-known pieces include ‘Mercy’ (2004), a single-channel film of the artist, Elvis-like with slicked-back hair and a creamy white suit, strumming a guitar and repeating the refrain “Oh why do I keep on hurting you?”.

Ragnar Kjartansson has exhibited widely at leading art institutions around the world. The exhibition is the first major retrospective in Scandinavia and follows extensive presentations at Louisiana of other key figures in contemporary art who work in multiple media, such as Marina Abramović, Pipilotti Rist, Mika Rottenberg and Arthur Jafa.