‘It’s beautiful and sad to be a human being’: Ragnar Kjartansson brings ‘the best artwork of the 21st century’ to Australia

A nine-screen installation with a cult following is one of many highlights in the Icelandic artist’s first major Australian show, at Melbourne’s NGV In a video recorded by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, he stands side by side with his mother, Guðrún Ásmundsdóttir, in front of a bookshelf, as if posing for a photo. Ásmundsdóttir was 65 at the time and appears with a halo of greying curls, wearing a red cardigan. She looks up at her smartly dressed son, then repeatedly, noisily, spits into his face. “I wanted to make a brutal work,” says Kjartansson of the video, which he made in 2000 while at art school in Reykjavík. He almost succeeded. For most of it, Kjartansson mutely accepts the abuse from his stony-faced mother. Occasionally, though, the pair dissolve into laughter. Every five years, Kjartansson and Ásmundsdóttir have restaged the piece. As the videos progress, you witness both mother and son ageing. The latest of the six instalments was filmed in 2025, the year Ásmundsdóttir turned 90. “She almost can’t spit any more. It’s very hard for her,” says Kjartansson. The work almost didn’t develop into this modern-day memento mori. A guest lecturer