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Photograph: Michael Juliano

The Broad’s most mesmerizing piece is going back on display

Michael Juliano
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Michael Juliano
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Museumgoers lining up for the Broad may still be swept up in the surprise addition of a second permanent Infinity Mirror Room, but we’re even more excited for the return of one of the museum’s most memorable installations.

Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s The Visitors, a nine-screen video of musicians performing in separate rooms of a farmhouse, will return to the museum’s ground floor gallery for the first time since its inaugural installation two years ago.

Photograph: Courtesy Ragnar Kjartansson

The piece returns as part of “A Journey That Wasn’t,” a free collection exhibition that opens June 30 and runs through February 2019. The show inspired by the passage of time includes more than 50 works from the likes of Gregory Crewdson, Andreas Gursky, Glenn Ligon and Anselm Kiefer. The exhibition also marks the L.A. debut of works from Sharon Lockhart, Sherrie Levine and Ed Ruscha, whose monumental diptych Azteca/Azteca in Decline will be on display.

We were blown away by The Visitors during the inaugural exhibition in 2015. Tucked into a dark room on the first floor, the single take, hourlong video piece is among the most sincere and beautiful installations to grace the museum’s gallery spaces. You find yourself in the (simulated) company of a group of musicians as their simultaneous performances play out across nine screens. Each projection is dedicated to a different room and musician—look for Kjartansson himself sitting in the tub—and one to the Hudson Valley house where they all take place.

Check out this 360-degree video of the installation during a recent run at SFMOMA.

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