This year’s Ruhrfestspiele art exhibition features Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. Born in 1976, Kjartansson is one of the most influential contemporary artists of the Nordic region. He is known worldwide for his humorous and melancholic works that deal with life in a unique and entertaining way.

Kjartansson first became known as a musician in the early 2000s, particularly as the frontman of the band Trabant. This musical background continues to shape his artistic practice to this day. In his works, he deals self-deprecatingly with themes such as love, melancholy, identity, power, and powerlessness, while at the same time deconstructing cultural and male role models. In doing so, he deliberately draws on art history traditions, in particular the genre of 19th-century landscape painting and feminist performance art of the second half of the 20th century.

The exhibition includes video installations and new paintings, offering a concentrated overview of Kjartansson’s work characterized by three central themes: music, feminism, and art history.

Ever since gaining international recognition at the 2009 Venice Biennale, his works have been shown in major institutions such as the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Barbican Centre in London, and the Louisiana Museum near Copenhagen.

Kjartansson’s show in Recklinghausen is the first institutional collaboration between Kunsthalle, Ruhrfestspiele, and Kumu Tallinn, one of the most important art museums in Northern Europe.