One of the most distinctive voices in contemporary art will take over NGV International this winter, with the gallery unveiling the first major Australian solo exhibition by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson.
Opening on 26 June 2026 in Melbourne, Ragnar Kjartansson: Mercy will bring together eight new and recent video works that blend music, humour and theatrical spectacle. Drawing on influences from literature, cinema and pop music, Kjartansson’s work often balances comedy with melancholy while exploring themes such as love, masculinity and repetition.
A centrepiece of the exhibition is The Visitors, a nine screen installation first created in 2012 that has become one of the artist’s most celebrated works. Filmed inside Rokeby mansion in upstate New York, the piece shows Kjartansson and a group of musicians from the Reykjavik music scene performing the same song in different rooms of the house.
Each musician plays in isolation while the music builds collectively across the screens, from a drummer in the kitchen to a banjo player in the library and Kjartansson performing on guitar while sitting in a bath. The work unfolds in real time and has been described by the artist as a “feminine nihilistic gospel song”.
The exhibition will also include the Australian premiere of Sunday Without Love, a recent single channel video work released in 2025. Inspired by a postcard hanging on the artist’s fridge, the piece features Kjartansson and nine performers dressed in generic European folk costumes repeatedly singing the phrase “You must learn to live without love”.
Another work, Me and My Mother, documents a long running collaboration between the artist and his mother, Icelandic actor Guðrún Ásmundsdóttir. Every five years she spits on him while the camera records their expressions and reactions.
NGV director Tony Ellwood said the exhibition introduces Australian audiences to the artist’s unique creative world.
“This exhibition, the first of its kind in Australia, shares the idiosyncratic worldview of Ragnar with Australian audiences for the very first time. With tongue firmly in cheek, his works have truly captured the zeitgeist with their original combination of music, wit and performance.”
Ragnar Kjartansson: Mercy will run from 26 June 2026 to 4 October 2026. A free children’s exhibition inspired by the artist’s theatrical influences will also run alongside it.
Further information is available via the NGV website: NGV.MELBOURNE
