BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//GayOut//Event Export//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT UID:217099@gayout.com DTSTAMP:20260831T102653Z DTSTART:20260904T000000Z DTEND:20270131T000000Z SUMMARY:Ragnar Kjartansson: Politics of the Obvious Exhibit DESCRIPTION:Ragnar Kjartansson works across performance\\, music\\, and i mage to create shared emotional experiences from otherwise commonplace or familiar scenes. Politics of the Obvious is one of the celebrated Icel andic artist’\\;s most ambitious ever exhibitions in the United Stat es and half of the works are making their American museum debut at the Bu ffalo AKG. The exhibition centers on a series of deceptively simple refra ins\\, clichés\\, and truisms. In six immersive installations made over more than two decades\\, Kjartansson transforms such familiar phrases or gestures into experiences that become altogether strange\\, provocative\\ , and powerfully moving.\\nIn the video Scenes from Western Culture (Th e Boat) (2015)\\, for example\\, an elegantly dressed couple repeatedly and languidly sets off into a tranquil sea\\; the man stays the same whil e the woman seems to keep changing. Their evident wealth and ease\\, coup led with the impossible beauty of their setting\\, constitute the stuff o f glossy travel brochures\\, the carefully constructed advertising tropes that wallpaper an office worker’\\;s imaginary. Such an unachievabl y perfect two weeks’\\; vacation was\\, of course\\, a reward design ed to help keep that same worker productive during the other fifty weeks of the year. Devoid of drama or incident\\, Kjartansson’\\;s The Bo at embodies the deep-rooted fantasy that leisure (enjoyed through the br ief reprieve of a vacation or more durably attained through wealth) will cure what ails us. It illustrates a fiction that is as inherent to modern ity as our increasingly digital and monitored working lives. \\nThe near by live performance Bangemand / Scaredman (2023) offers a stark counter point to the holidaymakers in The Boat. Every day during the museum̵ 7\\;s open hours\\, a man in a tuxedo inches along a narrow ledge high in a gallery\\, his body pressed anxiously against the wall. The scenario r ecalls cinematic tropes from silent-era physical comedy to midcentury thr illers such as Vertigo (1958) yet Kjartansson strips the scene of narra tive resolution. A clean-cut\\, suited figure is typically a sign of masc uline authority\\, composure\\, and control\\; in Scaredman\\, he instea d appears beset by unseen and undefined forces. The performance evokes a familiar cultural script in which masculinity is cast as under siege\\, t ransforming a familiar archetype into a meditation on fear\\, spectacle\\ , and the troubling logic that power sustains itself by staging its own v ulnerability. \\nhttps://www.gayout.com/usa-canada/united-states/buffalo /events/ragnar-kjartansson-politics-of-the-obvious-exhibit-2026-09-04 LOCATION:visitbuffalo.com URL:https://www.gayout.com/usa-canada/united-states/buffalo/events/ragnar-kjartansson-politics-of-the-obvious-exhibit-2026-09-04 STATUS:CONFIRMED END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR