'The Brown Period' is a yearlong exhibition by Ragnar Kjartansson at i8 Grandi. This presentation, which is Kjartansson’s sixth solo show at i8, opened on 18 January and will be on view until 18 December 2025. Throughout the year, the artist will exhibit both new and existing works.

'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 collides. 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.

The current presentation features two works by Kjartansson, exhibited for the first time in Iceland: 'Schmerz' (2022) and 'Hvad har vi dog gjort for at ha’ det så godt' (2023) and in both works, Kjartansson and his friend, Icelandic star comedian Saga Garðarsdóttir, repeatedly ask, “What have we done to deserve this?” for hours on end, but with a radically different tone and setting.

When you enter the gallery you are confronted with 'Schmerz' (2022) or Pain. Kjartansson performs with, Garðarsdóttir and musician Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir, a single dramatic moment, set in a Bruegel like European fairytale cottage on lake Zurich. It is standard classic opera of absurd pain and anguish contrasted with a beautiful summer’s day in the world’s most perfect and affluent city. The sentence which the man sings or says “Was hab ich gemacht” or “what have I done” is answered with the woman’s “Nein!” or “No!”. A situation of regret and misery affirmed in the most charged of languages, German.

In May 2023, Kjartansson and Garðarsdóttir performed for eleven- hours in a perfectly designed 20th century Scandinavian room, overlooking the Øresund strait between Denmark and Sweden. Throughout, the turntable plays a heartwarming old song, “Hver dag er en sjælden gave” (“Every day is a rare gift”, 1939) performed by Icelandic-Danish singer Elsa Sigfúss. The two play a couple continuously repeating the Danish phrase: “Hvad har vi dog gjort for at ha’ det så godt?” or “What have we done to deserve this?”. Sometimes they just say “Hvad har vi dog gjort”, “What have we done”. The phrase, used by Danes to acknowledge their luck, privilege or thankfulness, is an interesting rarity of expression. In the performance the repetitive question engages elements of situational brutality. An ideal situation in a world of death and misery.

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.

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.

Ragnar Kjartansson (b. 1976) lives and works in Reykjavík. Kjartansson has had solo exhibitions at major venues including: The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Reykjavík Art Museum; the Barbican Centre, London; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Park, Washington D.C.; the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and De Pont Museum, Tilburg, among others. Kjartansson participated in The Encyclopedic Palace at the Venice Biennale in 2013, Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2014, and he represented Iceland at the 2009 Venice Biennale. The artist received the 2019 Ars Fennica Award and was the recipient of the 2015 Artes Mundi’s Derek Williams Trust Purchase Award, as well as Performa’s 2011 Malcolm McLaren Award.