Ragnar Kjartansson, The End – Venice, June 2009, Performance shot, Commissioned by the Center for Icelandic Art. Image by Dave Yoder for The New York Times/Redux, courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York and i8 Galleri, Reykjavik.

Currently on view at Luhring Augustine through August 13, 2010 is the gallery’s first solo show of Icelandic-born artist Ragnar Kjartansson. The exhibition offers a video and a room full to the brim with canvases Kjartansson painted during the Venice Biennale 2009. Born in 1976, the artist is the youngest to ever show at the Biennale. Multidisciplinary in his approach, Kjartansson creates with drawing, painting, sculpture, video, and theater. His work taps into not only his own cultural history and the Nordic notions of tragedy, but also the nostalgic history of bygone eras of theater, television, music, and art.

Installation shot. Image by Art Observed.

More text and images after the jump… (more…)