'The Brown Period' is a year-long exhibition by Ragnar Kjartansson at i8 Grandi. This presentation is Kjartansson’s sixth solo show at i8. Throughout the year, the artist will exhibit new works and existing projects. The opening presentation debuts a new two-channel video by the artist, 'A Boy and a Girl and a Bush and a Bird' (2025), Ragnar created the piece with his long time collaborators Davíð Þór Jónsson and Anne Carson at an old banana plantation in Hveragerði, Iceland. 

'The Brown Period' is an extended project, intended to be a dive into the realms of the experimental. As i8 Grandi is a short walk from Kjartansson’s studio, the artist will treat the gallery as a project space where lucky strikes and failure collide. For the artist, the bass drum in the project space will be new video works and studio shorts, mixing drama, music, and cinematic indulgence. The works on view will continue to change throughout the year as the show evolves.

Ragnar Kjartansson engages multiple artistic mediums, creating video installations, performances, drawings, and paintings that draw upon myriad historical and cultural references. An underlying pathos and irony connect his works, with each deeply influenced by the comedy and tragedy of classical theater. The artist blurs the distinctions between mediums, approaching his painting practice as performance, likening his films to paintings, and his performances to sculpture. Throughout, Kjartansson conveys an interest in beauty and its banality, and he uses durational, repetitive performance as a form of exploration.

Spanning far longer than traditional museum or gallery shows, i8 Grandi’s programming focuses on concepts of space and time. The sustained duration of the annual format allows artists to consider how time affects their work, and the fluidity encourages audiences to revisit the changing installations. Kjartansson’s is the fourth year-long presentation at i8 Grandi, following exhibitions by Andreas Eriksson in 2024, B. Ingrid Olson in 2023, and Alicja Kwade in 2022.