Artist's Mother Spits on Him Every 5 Years

Why It Matters

It shows how ritualized repetition can shape artistic identity and challenge conventional notions of cultural authenticity, offering insight for creators and cultural analysts.

Key Takeaways

• Artist adopts five-year spitting ritual for creative renewal
• Repetition framed as mantra creates quasi-religious artistic experience
• Cultural roots influence artist's perception of European identity
• Icelandic art school project inspired painting on holy birth
• Dialogue reveals tension between authenticity and performative cultural narratives

Summary

The video centers on an eccentric ritual in which an artist recounts that his mother spits on him every five years, a practice he has turned into a symbolic act of renewal.

He explains that the five‑year interval creates a mantra‑like repetition, turning the act into a quasi‑religious experience that fuels his creative process. The conversation also touches on his upbringing, the pressure to remain in England to “create culture,” and his later studies at an art school in Iceland, where he produced a painting referencing the holy birth of Jesus.

Notable moments include his description, “It just becomes mystical, like a religious experience,” and the laughter‑filled exchange about the “holy birth” painting, underscoring the blend of humor and seriousness in his artistic narrative.

The ritual illustrates how artists may adopt performative, even absurd, customs to confront authenticity, cultural identity, and the myth‑making inherent in the art world, offering a lens for audiences to reconsider the boundaries between personal myth and public art.

Original Description

“That's a piece that started in art school. And then I decided this rule that we should film it every five years.”

Ragnar Kjartansson discusses a series of works created with his mother over the course of twenty-five years. Typical of Kjartansson’s singularly playful and intuitive approach, his ambitious works balance humor, absurdity, and pathos, transforming the mundane into the profound.

“I just really like this idea of repetition, that it creates a mantra – creates something religious. It just becomes… mystical. It just becomes like a religious experience.”

Watch Ragnar Kjartansson in “Realms of the Real,” the second episode of Art21’s acclaimed series, “Art in the Twenty-First Century,” for free on Art21's YouTube channel.