CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/7/2013

STAFF FAVORITE: Ragnar Kjartansson

Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, shown here performing in the 2004 single-channel video work "Satan is Real"—reproduced from JRP|Ringier's awesome survey of music-related works, To Music—is the subject of a major feature in this weekend's New York Times. (The artist's traveling American museum survey, Song, is currently on view at the ICA Boston, and his nine-screen video installation, "The Visitors"—also featured in To Music—will be on view at Luhring Augustine, New York, in February.) In a 2011 interview with Edek Bartz, published in To Music, Kjartansson says, "Someone once said the reason country music is so good is that it’s just three chords and the truth. You can also say that about soul music and blues. It is American music. A friend of mine, who is an avant-garde sound and noise artist, only listens to American music. He says he cannot listen to European music. He says it is arty crap, saying, 'Because I’m a European I have to make arty crap.' He wishes he could be a true American songwriter. It’s true: all American music comes from the soil, but most European bands come from art schools."