the visitors

The Visitors.jpg
A scene from Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors. Photograph taken by the author at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, October 2017.

There is a beautiful work by Ragnar Kjartansson in which eight musicians are filmed in eight different rooms of a mansion, all independently playing the same song, using a colored-pencil score, all in one take. The result is striking, moving, wondrous, and left me with a gracious envy and desire for musical connection.

On view at the SF MoMA through January 1, 2018.

Also notable were Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s soothing, zen temple-like clinamen v.2 and Brian Eno’s New Urban Spaces Series #4: “Compact Forest Proposal” which created a Turrell Dark Space-esque discovery experience.

Thank you to Tanay for recommending the work and to Sang for experiencing it with me.

EDIT (2023-03-20): The Visitors has returned to the SF MoMA and will be on view through June 2024. My emotional experience was just as deep the second time. I can’t recommend going more highly.