“尽头”，艺术家与模特，运河边。
Ragnar Kjartansson，一个将自己描述为无可救药的浪漫者的艺术家，将代表冰岛参展今年的威尼斯双年展。Ragnar Kjartansson多面的艺术行为根植于一种表现与表演的传统，带有一种存在主义及荒诞主义的敏感，这种敏感使人联想起Caspar David Friedrich，Gilbert 和 George。Kjartansson为此次威尼斯双年展筹备的展览名叫“尽头”（The End），以真人造型为主，配合视频播放及音乐装置，并将持续6个月直至双年展闭幕。
展览将在一个名叫Palazzo Michiel dal Brusà的14世纪的宫殿中进行，这一宫殿位于大运河边，从2007年开始作为冰岛国家馆。
在这次展览上，Ragnar Kjartansson将不懈地为一个年轻人画肖像，这个年轻人将以大运河为背景，边抽烟边喝酒，而身上只穿着浴衣。6个月中，Ragnar Kjartansson都将为其作画，作好一幅就将其放在旁边接着再做。这一表演的部分原因为艺术家自身的疑问，这一疑问暗示着他对作品于外界关系的永恒的概念再形成。
而在另一个单独的展厅中是一个声像装置，视频摄制于加拿大的落基山脉，Kjartansson与他的同伴于其间弹奏着模糊不清的乡村音乐。 这个取自于广阔大自然的场景，加上自认的声音，与这个孤立的展厅形成鲜明的对比。
联系这两部分展览的主题为创造力，朋友情谊和对世界的疲倦感。
“我将这个场馆想象成世界尽头的一座光明之城。它注视着虚无的边缘，波浪追逐着迷失的灵魂，大雾模糊了你视线，使你免受来自地狱的晕眩。这是一个不知名的海洋，坐在码头上的是一个没有命运的人。”Ejiksson这样描绘他妆扮下的冰岛国家馆 。
(来源：冰岛CIA网站，点击查看原文)
【编辑：Julia】
THE END
The official Icelandic representation at the 53rd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia will feature Ragnar Kjartansson, a self-described incurable romantic, whose multifaceted artistic practice is rooted in a tradition of acting and performance with an existential and absurdist sensibility that can be linked to artists ranging from Caspar David Friedrich to Gilbert and George. Kjartansson’s exhibition for Venice, entitled The End, will feature a tableau vivant of the artist and his model that will last for the entire six-months of the Biennale, along with a monumental video and music installation. It will be presented in the Palazzo Michiel dal Brusà, a 14th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal near the Rialto, which has served as the Icelandic Pavilion since 2007.
Transforming the Pavilion into a makeshift studio for the Biennale, Kjartansson will relentlessly paint the portrait of a young man posing day after day against the backdrop of the Grand Canal. The young man modeling for him will be smoking cigarettes and drinking beer, while clothed only in a bathing suit. For six months, Kjartansson will limit his art production to the painting of this scene. He will produce one work after the other, with the paintings made on previous days left to accumulate in piles around the studio. Though not an idealized version of the artist and his model – such a proposal being disrupted by the incongruous appearance of the Speedo, the cigarettes, and the beer in an otherwise romantic setting – the performance is partially based on questions of the artist’s self, suggesting his perpetual re-conceptualization in relation to his surroundings and previously existing works of art.
In a separate room, a new video and sound installation consisting of several scenes shot in the Canadian Rocky Mountains will display Kjartansson and a collaborator playing an ambiguous country music arrangement on a variety of instruments. Recorded directly in the snow-covered mountains, the music will take on the sounds of nature that, along with the expansive sights and sounds in the video, will be in sharp contrast to the intimate and isolated performance in the adjoining room of the Palazzo. Taken together, the recorded performance in the Rocky Mountains and the live performance in Venice will create a dramatic juxtaposition between two iconic settings. Connecting the two portions of the exhibition, however, are themes of creativity, camaraderie, and Weltschmerz or world-weariness.
Also a part of the exhibition, and in anticipation of the Biennale, Kjartansson and his friend and fellow artist Andjeas Ejiksson began exchanging letters in early 2008 chronicling preparations for the Pavilion. The two artists approached this dialogue from a performance angle, slipping into the roles of two sentimental gentlemen of yore. In the correspondence, which will be published in its entirety in the exhibition catalogue, Ejiksson describes the Pavilion as follows:
“I imagine the Venice Pavilion being a lighthouse at the end of the world, watching the verge of nothingness.Waves chasing the lost souls and the mist blurring the horizon, protecting you from the vertigo of the abyss. It is a nameless sea and sitting on the dock is a man without fate”
(来源：冰岛CIA网站，点击查看译文)
【编辑：Julia】
