Listen, I know this sounds a little crazy, but the best piece of art at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a video installation, and it is closing at the end of the month. You do not want to miss it.
I get why you might be skeptical. Usually, when I see a video installation in a museum, I stand near the back for a moment, taking in the overall vibe before — quickly — moving on. Rarely have I felt the urge to sit through more than a few minutes, let alone the whole thing.
“The Visitors” by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson is different.
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The first time I caught it at SFMOMA, I arrived midway through. I’d just been laid off and was looking to find a way to fill my suddenly free days. I followed a tip from a friend, who told me she returns to “The Visitors” over and over again. I made my way up to the sixth floor — rather crowded for a random weekday in January — and splayed myself out on the carpet. Within minutes, I was so transfixed that I stayed through the end, then watched the entire hourlong thing again.
It’s probably my favorite piece of art in the city, and anyone who hasn’t seen it yet should run. And if you run fast enough, you’ll catch a performance by Alonzo King Lines Ballet alongside the work on Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.
Kjartansson’s nine-screen video installation premiered in 2012 and has played at SFMOMA for three years. The work, named after an ABBA album, shows a group of musicians performing a suite of ethereal, repetitive music inside a historic mansion. Something about it is hypnotic in a way that verges on medicinal. The piece lulls you into a dreamy mindset wherein your phone and obligations don’t exist. In addition to performing original music by Kjartansson, the players share drinks, pop into the bath, wander between one another’s frames, and fire a cannon into the distance.
“The Visitors” has received near universal acclaim since its debut. Calling it “the maddest house party ever,” The Guardian named it the top artwork of the 21st century. “The more often I see it, the more I come to inhabit its rooms,” wrote critic Adrian Searle. “Why is it so compelling and, with its repetitions, so watchable multiple times? The fragility of friendship and love, communality and miscommunication all have a part here.”
“The Visitors” has left and returned before — it had an initial San Francisco run in 2017 and 2018, and SFMOMA co-owns the piece — though museum officials haven’t disclosed plans for a future visit. So for now, you have until Sept. 28 to see it.