An Enveloping Experience

If you experienced Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors at MOCA Cleveland last season, you know firsthand the power of this Icelandic artist’s work. Although The Visitors left months ago, the Cleveland Museum of Art has arranged to host a new work by Kjartansson. Opening today, Song features a single camera rotating around Kjartansson’s three nieces for a continuous six hours while they repeated the refrain of a gentle folk song by Allen Ginsberg. The setting of the video is the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Hall of Sculpture, commissioned in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie. Inspired by his surroundings, Kjartansson cast his nieces as classical muses. The walls of the CMA’s Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall will be draped in the same royal blue satin featured in the video, amplifying this enveloping experience. Ragnar Kjartansson: Song runs through August 16. (Usmani)