This event was presented by the East Wing Collection in collaboration with White Space Gallery, London, 20-22 October 2006.


Cold, Cold Heart brought together eight artists from the Nordic countries and their frontiers, including Jesper Just, Torbjorn Rodland and Olga Chernysheva, in a weekend festival of video and performance art staged across Somerset House. Preceded by a half-day conference featuring several participating artists, the centrepiece of the weekend was Ragnar Kjartansson’s three-day performance Satan is Real in the Stamp Stair. Audience reactions were varied and entertaining, in an evolving performance that became highly interactive. The first such event to take place at Somerset House, it offered a glimpse of the building’s unique potential as a theatre for innovative art.

Nicholas Dubois – East Wing Collection Committee


 

Near the start of autumn term, Courtauld students became aware of Cold, Cold Heart through an image of a young girl in snowy woods on a motorcycle and the words ‘Satan is Real’. Intrigued, I attended the afternoon conference and weekend performances with the enthusiasm of new beginnings.  Memorable were Mattias Akerfelt’s karaoke-style installation that pushed me to find a tune for Kant, the mesmerizing use of music in the short films by Jesper Just, and the impressive commitment and musicality of Ragnar Kjartansson’s Satan is Real. It proved to be an exciting introduction to the Courtauld.


Maggie Goodspeed – M.A. Student