We cordially invite you to the opening on Saturday, May 2, 2026 at 5 p.m. at the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen. 

SPEAKERS 
Axel Tschersich 
Mayor of the City of Recklinghausen 

Ina Brandes MdL 
Minister for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia 

Olaf Kröck 
Artistic Director of the Ruhrfestspiele 

Dr. Anders Härm 
Exhibition Curator, KUMU Art Museum, Tallinn 

Dr. Nico Anklam 
Director of the Museums of the City of Recklinghausen

Ragnar Kjartansson will be present. 


This year’s Ruhrfestspiele art exhibition features Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. Born in 1976, Kjartansson is one of the most influential contemporary artists of the Nordic region. He is known worldwide for his humorous and melancholic works that deal with life in a unique and entertaining way.

Kjartansson first became known as a musician in the early 2000s, particularly as the frontman of the band Trabant. This musical background continues to shape his artistic practice to this day. In his works, he deals self-deprecatingly with themes such as love, melancholy, identity, power, and powerlessness, while at the same time deconstructing cultural and male role models. In doing so, he deliberately draws on art history traditions, in particular the genre of 19th-century landscape painting and feminist performance art of the second half of the 20th century. 

The exhibition includes the German premieres of the video installations Sunday Without Love(2025), No Tomorrow (2022), Figures in Landscape (2018) and S.S. Hangover (2013/14), as well as the new series of paintings Weekdays in Arcadia (2025), offering a concentrated overview of Kjartansson’s work characterized by three central themes: music, identity, and art history. 

Ever since gaining international recognition at the 2009 Venice Biennale, his works have been shown in major institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Barbican Centre in London, and The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art near Copenhagen. 

Kjartansson’s show in Recklinghausen is the first institutional collaboration between Kunsthalle, Ruhrfestspiele, and Kumu Tallinn, one of the most important art museums in Northern Europe.