"For what was likely the last time, they were quietly absorbing "The Visitors" by Ragnar Kjartansson - the nine-channel video installation the Guardian once called the best artwork of the 21st century. For the past three years, the video, which has also screened at the Broad in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim in New York, has found a temporary home at SFMOMA. But on Sunday, Sept. 28, the exhibition is set to leave the museum. This week, locals shuffled in to say goodbye."
"My visits to the exhibit have coincided with turning points in life: the end of a three-year relationship and the start of life in an unfamiliar city, away from old friends. But even for someone without any baggage, "The Visitors" would be arresting. It's the rare sort of artwork that, for a brief spell, peels back a person's layers of coolness and cynicism like an onion's skin, leaving the raw nerves exposed to the sun."
The Visitors is a nine-channel video installation by Ragnar Kjartansson presenting an original hourlong song performed by a group of friends in a historic upstate New York mansion. The piece is filmed in a single take and displayed across nine synchronized screens, inviting viewers to shift attention among intimate domestic scenes and musical performance. Visitors often sit on the floor and quietly absorb the layered audio-visual experience for the entire duration. The work toured major museums and occupied a temporary home at SFMOMA for three years before its scheduled departure, frequently eliciting strong sentimental reactions.
Read at SFGATE
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