Ragnar Kjart­ans­son: World Light

The work is a four-screen cinematic adaptation of the epic novel World Light (1937–1940) by the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic writer Halldór Laxness. Based on the structure of the novel’s four volumes the result is a four-channel video installation. The year 2025 marks the 10 year anniversary of the work and the 70th anniversary of Halldór Laxness' Nobel Prize.

To make the work, Kjartansson directed a group of friends and family from the Reykjavik art scene during a one-month performance at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Vienna. Entitled the Palace of the Summerland the performance was open to the public that could simultaneously watch a show, its production and backstage activity. The film work delivers the same oscillation between spheres as not only do we see the actual shot but also the moments before and after. Every single recording of the eighty-odd scenes of the film is screened unedited, regardless of how they turned out or how many times they needed to be repeated. The result is a cubistic film of sorts; a relentless and fragmented whole touching on the epic range of human emotion and destiny.