No Tomorrow is a new video installation by Ragnar Kjartansson, Margrét Bjarnadóttir, and composer Bryce Dessner. It is currently on view at Luhring Augustine in Chelsea, NYC, until Dec 17th and at De Pont Museum, in Tilburg, the Netherlands until Jan 29th. 2023.
Spanning six screens that encircle the room, the installation surrounds viewers with a performance of spatial music written for eight dancers with eight guitars. Recorded from the center of the performers’ space, the installation is kaleidoscopic, capturing the dancers as they weave within each screen and across the channels; their movements and melodies ranging from pastorale to rock and roll. Combining a variety of classic Western references – blue jeans and white t-shirts, the draped silk curtains of mid-20th century song and dance films, as well as lyrics drawn from the Archaic Greek poet Sappho and adventurer Vivant Denon, two sensualists millennia apart – the work spins notions of idealization and iconography. It is also a reflection on our ideals of beauty, our search for it, and the absurdity of its representations, inspired by the frivolity and reality of Rococo paintings, classical ballet, and modern pop music videos. The performance was initially commissioned for the Iceland Dance Company in 2017, and the new video work features the original cast of performers, all of whom were integral to the development of the work.
