A Mirrored Detritus and the Camouflaged Body : B. Ingrid Olson at i8 Gallery

by Daría Sól Andrews | Þriðjudagur.07.2019 | artzine in english, Viðtöl

A Mirrored Detritus and the Camouflaged Body : B. Ingrid Olson at i8 Gallery

I8 recently added B. Ingrid Olson (b.1987) to their roster of represented artists, a Chicago based artist whose intriguing practice can be placed somewhat ambiguously along an undefined axis of photography and sculpture. Olson´s exhibition at i8, Fingered Eyed, her first solo exhibition in Iceland, is compelling in its refined execution. Each of Olson´s pieces are intricately woven in a subtly connected thematic, bordering a limbo between a raw sterility that is contrasted by the warm, fleshy presence of the human body. Fingered Eyed is stark and directed, with a unique precision of vision that is wholly satisfying.

This exhibition works with an open and permeable vocabulary of sculpture, photography, a theatrical staging, and a focused detail on physical material. As Olson essentializes, a “bodily image contained by spatial cavities, or concavities.” At first glance, her sculptural photographs suggest something like papier mache, digitally distorted after the fact, the compositions so complex and confused. In fact, the meticulous moments are staged by the hand of the artist, captured at the blink of an eye, or rather at the close of a camera shutter. Crafted with a precise calculation, each photograph contains a different aim, a different intuition of gesture as she expands and contracts the body and its mirrored proximities.

Installation view Fingered Eyed at i8 Gallery.

Olson unpacks the process for me: “the work that appears to be primarily sculptural comes out of a series of forms that are actually designed to create images by way of light and shadow cast over the protruding edges and inward curving surfaces. Overhead lighting works on their structure to relay a shadow-image of a minimal, absent body. Though these works are not at all photographic technically, their relationship to light (both artificial and natural sunlight) does function as a parallel metaphor for photography, which at its root is described as ‘drawing with light’. And conversely, the works that can be easily referred to as photographic are also equally sculptural in their activity, structure, and presence. The pictures capture performative sculpting of the body and space, with handmade props or found objects that work to camouflage or conflate the figure with its surrounding space. The printed images are then again bridged into the sculptural by way of their deep Plexiglas frames that extend far into their frontal airspace, forming a simultaneous barrier and open container.”

These photographic objects (plexiglass, dye sublimation print on aluminum, MDF) extend out from the wall, surgical yellow, pasty tones interrupting the sterile gallery space. She calls these three works ‘blinders’, working with an analogous relationship to interior architectural space. “The deep sides become wall-like, in that they cordon off the recessed image from full view when approached from an oblique angle. They put limitations on the completeness of vision and dictate how much and when the framed image can possibly be seen. The frames work to orient the viewer towards full-frontal, conscious looking.” It is only when we come to face the object that we encounter the work within. Because of their physical walls, we cannot fully experience the sculptural forms unless facing them head on, entering them, almost. It is in this that Olson allows us to be alone with the piece, carving out a space from which a work and an experience emerges from within the depths of an empty wall. An object, out of moment, for us to privately revel in.

Installation view Fingered Eyed at i8 Gallery.

The body is present throughout. Olson hides her face, but it is present. As she explains, “the body as ‘malleable construction’ has givens, but they can be adapted, changed, and altered. I think this quality of the lived-body is related to lived-architecture, in that there is the initial design of the space, versus the eventual built building that succumbs to time and changing circumstances. Bodies and buildings both need consistent upkeep and adaptation in order to fill certain changing roles, or needs. There is the given nature of things in the beginning—and then there is manipulated, altered, embodied experience.”

A finger over the lens. Mirrors smudged by bodily interaction. An oddly covered female crotch. Smaller sculptures dispersed along the floor and walls reference to knees, holes, body rolls, hips. A loose sculptural representation of an eye, also just barely noticeable in a photograph, imprints of kneeling, a place where two feet might once have stood. The gallery space is physically marked and molded by the body, the image taking a tactile form.

Each photograph, sculpture, and malleable form informs the other, Olson explains, in their difference in speed. “Images work with immediacy, quickly on the eye, whereas sculptural objects are much slower. The photographic images have a sense of simultaneous time inherent to them, inviting a mental jump to a past time and place. The sculptures are (questionably) ever-present, existing as objects to be encountered by the body, in the here-and-now. It is my hope that the sculptural will slow the photographic, and the photographic pieces will prod the sculptural components, causing them to shiver a bit.”

In the smaller sculpture works, the corporeal nature of craftlike fabrics, the delicateness of the cloth, for example, draws out a physical moment from the image. One sculpture is made out of light reflective paper, which she uses in her images as well to create shapes and distortion over her body. The photographic method is then brought out into an embodied form, into physical space, for us to engage and respond to.

When I ask B Ingrid from where she draws artistic influence, she tells me that she tries to “spend time with and approach things or ideas that I strongly dislike. Repulsion or anger is the opposite of attraction and affinity, so it only seems natural to try to find a point of entry into the uncomfortable or the unwanted so they can inform their opposites in some way, or at the very least so they create some itchiness by way of their difference.” And in fact, the harshness of this reflective paper, harnessing a sterile and extreme light, invokes a very specific and familiar feeling in the viewer. It is an uneasy feeling, an itchiness even, and we don’t quite know why. A prosthetic, surgical quality, invokes the naked, gritty, harsh lights of a hospital. Uncomfortably sickly tones and artificial body parts create a corporal form out of something mechanical. A shrine of the body, mixing physical and artificial, plastic and organic, natural and constructed. In this uneasiness we become distinctly aware of our own bodies, whether they are not quite surely still whole, amidst this chopping of others.

Installation view Fingered Eyed at i8 Gallery.

In closing, I notice that a quarter of sales from an offset print in the exhibition will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union and to Stígamót Education and Counseling Center for Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Violence in Iceland. Perhaps this is part of the derived implication, in Olson’s focus on the body and the unwanted, that our bodies are threatened, of not being sacred, ravaged, torn apart, manipulated. An extra layer for private reflection is unveiled, a space for us to consider a safe place for our bodies, where we revel in their beauty, uninterrupted.

Olson’s aim from this exhibition? Put simply, “to slow an image down, to create, in its ideal outcome, an image that will contain multiple readings, or entry points—to make an image that will only reveal itself fully over a longer period of time.” And successfully achieved, in intriguing fashion.

Daría Sól Andrews

Fingered Eyed is on view at i8 Gallery until August 10th, 2019.

Cover photo: B. Ingrid Olson, Eye, Camera, Body, Room, (Horizontal), 2019.

Photo credits: Vigfús Birgirsson

Photographs courtesy of i8 Gallery.

Artist’s website: http://bingridolson.com

i8 Gallery: https://i8.is

Confronting Surfaces

by Nanna Vibe Spejlborg Juelsbo | Föstudagur.07.2019 | artzine in english

Confronting Surfaces

A bright colored tracksuit hanging from the ceiling is slowly turning as if an invisible air stream were spinning it around. When moving closer to the work I realise that the tracksuit’s print is an actual print of the tracksuit itself laying flat on a wooden floor. A meta-view of a tracksuit. A fashion garment staged as an art piece. This work, together with others, is a part of a new exhibition at Skaftfell Art Center in Seyðisfjörður which brings together works by American visual artist Cheryl Donegan (1962) and Swiss visual artist Dieter Roth (1930-1998).

The exhibition was curated by the director of Skaftfell, Gavin Morrison, who saw a resonance between Roth’s works and Donegan’s contemporary printing methods. A resonance especially apparent in Dieter Roth’s later years which he mostly spent in Seyðisfjörður producing innumerable prints, drawings and books.

When asked, Morrison explains he finds that both artists through experimenting with content and printing techniques engage in self-reflected conversations on the aspect of printing and publishing as a strategy of art.

Donegan‘s fabric pieces are exhibited hanging from the walls and from the ceiling and laying on tables, in-between table displays showing Roth’s books and sketches. In fact, the exhibition consists in full of Donegan’s three tracksuits, four wall pieces made by dyed fabric, one large wall banner which stretches out onto the floor, one video work and three textile works bound together as books. All of Donegan’s works are interwoven with six tables displaying Roth’s heterogeneous works such as books, prints, notes, drawings, diary entries and nine pixelated newspaper cut-outs on a wall.

Cheryl Donegan, Banner (Light Blue Gingham), 2014-ongoing. Photograph: Mary Buckland/Skaftfell

On one of June’s last days I called Cheryl Donegan. She was back in her home in New York after having visited Iceland and Seyðisfjörður to set up the exhibition at Skaftfell. To begin the conversation, I asked her to introduce us to her practise.

When I was in art school, I was always painting. I was determined that I was going to be a painter. It was not until after my second degree that I picked up a camera and that was what I got famous for in the 90’s. The residue of video art is still in my work today in form of digital technology. At this point technology is blended so thoroughly into my work that now I am doing painting, printing and using digital and craft means. In a way I feel that I have found my way back to painting through these interventions.

By mixing digital methods with analogue craft Donegan creates works in which methods and styles from high tech and low tech meet – digital means meets physical craft.

I have developed a set of methods by combining digitally printed fabrics and craft techniques like dyeing and printing such as primitive forms like resist dyeing and my own adapted methods from batik. This combined with what I call an ecology of images which comes from the world around me: photographs I take, imagery that I am attracted to online, low-end consumer imagery and things I find in everyday life such as clothing and patterns. I am always collecting images and reusing them again and again.

The printing and publishing practice seems to be the common ground between Donegan’s and Roth’s works. In one of the glass displays showing Roth’s works I stumble upon a stack of illustrations very simplistically piled up revealing only the top image. This pile symbolises the quantity of Roth’s works and it might suggest the challenge that the curator had to face when dealing with Roth’s massive production.

On a table, fourteen books titled either ‘dieter roth’ or ‘dieter rot’ and all numbered differently: ‘dieter roth 3’, ‘dieter rot 20’, ‘dieter roth 12’ are displayed. Flipping through the pages of these books I understood that this format was for Roth a way of documenting his own practice, other people’s art, old newspapers articles, cartoons, sketches, prints and geometric figures. One book is even showing a collection of Roth’s own books. A book on books!

Installation view, Dieter Roth. Photograph: Mary Buckland/Skaftfell

When asking Donegan about her specific interest in printing she quickly connects it to her practice as a painter.

The recent history of painting is printing. I see a heritage of especially American artists dealing with reproduction and doing it in a way that is very much involved with “the hand” and the idea that you confront a surface not only by marking it, but by doubling it, repeating it. Working directly with fabric is for me the most influential. For instance with dye, the saturation of the fabric. The colors are not just ON the surface, they are IN the surface.

Walking around in the gallery space Donegan’s interest in colors is apparent and one work in particular stands out in the exhibition. Peels (2018/2019) has the shape of an oversized book and each of its pages is a dyed piece of fabric. The textile is thickly saturated with layers of color and the shapes vary from geometrical figures to freely sketched motives.

Cheryl Donegan, Peels, 2018/19 (Livre de Peinture). Photograph: Mary Buckland/Skaftfell

Cheryl Donegan, Flaps, 2019 (Livre de Peinture) Photograph: Mary Buckland/Skaftfell

Donegan connects her interest in colors with a childhood memory. Big books of wallpaper samples would be scattered around in the house where she grew up as her mother constantly had plans to redecorate and get new wallpapers on the walls.

My interest comes from the fantasy of getting lost in different worlds of color and textures. As with a page in a wallpaper book, each page in “Peels” represent a possibility, a bigger world, a different world. The pages are samples of possibilities! I remember having a lot of aesthetic pleasure looking through those thick books of wallpaper and feeling their patterns. I have these sensual memories of laying on my stomach in the living room turning these big pages of a book. Talking about low-tech, right?

In recent years Donegan has been working in the cross-field of art and fashion. Working with printing and dyeing of fabric Donegan found herself beginning to create actual wearables and garments. The three tracksuits exhibited in Skaftfell are all in strong signal colors and the prints are made by images of other tracksuits and fabrics. The caption next to the tracksuits informs that an „endless edition“ is available for sale on the website Print All Over Me, an American website to create and order custom printed garments.

Donegan highlights that the time we are currently living in is a time of distribution. From Donegan’s childhood in the 1960’s the world had seen a shift in the distribution structures from being a one-way function to today’s flow of creation, sharing and distribution in-between consumer and creator constantly blurring lines between the two.

One of the positive effects of social media – perhaps the only I can think of – is that today people can make things together and teach each other how to do things by sharing the process. Distribution is not going away, so let us use it to share things instead. I am not the top of the totem. I am a part of a system and that is the motive behind my art. That is what I am interested in!

Nanna Vibe Spejlborg Juelsbo

Skaftfell Art Center’s website http://skaftfell.is

Cover picture: Cheryl Donegan, ExtraLayer Tracksuit in Cracked, 2016 Print on demand, endless edition and Cheryl Donegan, Flaps, 2019 (Livre de Peinture). Photograph: Mary Buckland/Skaftfell

On display and for sale are also a collection of zines created by Cheryl Donegan and her friends.

As a side to the exhibition, Dieter Roth’s installation Húsin á Seyðisfirði, vetur 1988 – sumar 1995 [Houses of Seyðisfjörður, winter 1988 – summer 1995] is exhibited in Angró – a harbor building close to Skaftfell. This exhibition is made in collaboration with the Technical Museum in East Iceland.

Cheryl Donegan prints are purchasable here: www.paom.com/collections/cheryl-donegan

Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir wins the 2019 Guðmunda S. Kristindóttir Award

by Rúrí Sigríðardóttir | Laugardagur.07.2019 | artzine in english

Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir wins the 2019 Guðmunda S. Kristindóttir Award

In a seminar at the Academy of Fine Arts in Reykjavik, Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir explains in her terms that art creates questions for the audience, it does not provide answers for them. This is how most of Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir’s work meanders. A visual artist, with experience in film making and a cultural anthropology, Hulda Rós has been working with connecting her past memories and present experiences, exploring the social evolution of “Icelandicness”. Two exceptional artworks that Hulda Rós has made are The Cornershop or Kjötborg (2008), a film in collaboration with Helga Rakel Rafnsdóttir – that has been multi-awarded in Iceland and abroad – and her later work Keep Frozen (2016), which had an equally resounding mass appeal in festivals and was widely nominated on an international scale.

The Cornershop or Kjötborg is a film that every local enjoys: it shows life in Reykjavik as we remember it before the mass technological blast of production, before internet and the general globalisation of consumerism. Daily life, when people would still walk in a snowstorm in Vesturbær, in Reykjavik, to buy milk and two tomatoes, not three because the money was perhaps not enough. A time when the bill was not a printed digital number, but a hand-written paper of the local seller. When there was a strong feeling of neighbourhood and when the local stores or in Icelandic Sjoppan were meeting points. However, Hulda Rós’ approach is not judgemental.
Her work feels like an unexpected hug from an old school friend. It is something that we appreciate in its wholeness. Kjötborg doesn’t criticise the biggest stores or capitalism in a profound way. It does remind us though, all the small good things that we experience when interacting with smaller shops, a sincere góðan daginn instead of the fast automatic „beep“ in a supermarket that costs 346 ISK less, for instance. Kjötborg reminds us that a human being is a social being. That allows us to open a space in our head to think of how we can keep all the good in this developing society. Hulda’s work reports to the audience how things were in the past and how they are now, as entities that both exist in our memories. She explores these changes and the way we experience them, capturing and reanimating our memories, as in a parallel universe of what is today and what has remained from yesterday.

The Cornershop / Kjötborg (2008) poster.

In Keep Frozen (2016), Hulda Rós examines the contemporary dock workers by the port in Reykjavik. Docks are an architectural spot and emblem of Iceland, which is a fishing country. Everyone in Iceland at some point knew someone or had a family member working within the fishing industry. Or even further, they walked by the port to look at the sea and play. Many, there, found out how seagulls sound.
Today, though the scenery has been altered due to the development of tourism in the country, the docks have become a touristic destination where often new big hotels are built and dock workers have become latent in their own working space. Furthermore, one can say that docks have become a sort of safari location and the workers the object of observation, of what is need to be deposited in mind as Icelandic.
In Keep Frozen one can understand what is art as research and helps us come to the realisation that things are to be observed and researched. As a dock worker existed in our memory -perhaps of a grandpa we didn’t meet or the contemporary evolution of the viking that lives within the Icelandic vision- so they do exist today, in the same location with a changed socioeconomic perspective of the scene. They exist and still have a difficult job to execute, but are also performers for the eyes that look at them and coexist with them today.

Still from Keep Frozen (2016). The documentary Keep Frozen was very successful. It was nominated to dozen of international prizes during its film festival circulation that included A-level film festivals. Afterwards it was distributed in art house cinemas in Germany and in 2018 received an honor of becoming the content of Guðnadóttir´s first solo exhibition in a museum in Germany when it was shown as part of the 12 x 12 immersive screening program at Berlinische Galerie in Berlin.
See: http://www.huldarosgudnadottir.is/keepfrozendocumentary

Still from Material Puffin. HD, 00:06:28, 16:9 single-channel video loop, 2014. Original sound piece by Gudný Gudmundsdottir.
See: http://www.huldarosgudnadottir.is/materialpuffin

Hulda Rós does not only deserve the Guðmunda S. Kristinsdóttir Award as a female artist. She deserves it for her ability to grasp the anthropological evolution of this “Icelandicness” within a specific location of immense architectural and cultural exporting spot of Iceland. Hulda’s work takes us on a trip in Reykjavik, of what it was before and where we have come to be today, within the frame of social reforms and changes of the city through the years. Her work constitutes a thoughtful documentation of the Icelandic society’s evolution, the economy of Reykjavik and the still existing occupations such as the dock workers, which might serve as witness for the future generations. For the time being, húrra Hulda Rós for your work you gave us!

Rúrí Sigríðardóttir

Keep Frozen was completed with a very well designed book which can be found at: http://www.huldarosgudnadottir.is/keep-frozen-book

Those who would like to explore to extend Hulda’s researching work and up and coming projects please visit: http://www.6x6project.com/ and http://www.multis.is/

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the artist.
Cover Picture: Tides team, artist Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir with her collaborators behind the winning proposal for art in public space at Reykjavik harbor in 2017. Link to the project: http://www.huldarosgudnadottir.is/tides-tidir. From left to right: Hildigunnur Sverrisdóttir architect, Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir artist and Gísli Pálsson archeologist. Photo Credit: Maria Runarsdottir

On community, colour, and collaboration: an afternoon with Cobolt Collective.

by Juliane Foronda | Sunnudagur.06.2019 | artzine in english

On community, colour, and collaboration: an afternoon with Cobolt Collective.

I look up at the same sky as everyone else.

These words were so thoughtfully strung along Cobolt Collective’s most recent mural which immediately caught my eye. Bright pops of coral, ultramarine, scarlet and teal stretched throughout a collage of illustrations that took me right back to my childhood summers at the Jersey Shore. The vibrant palette eventually managed to fall secondary to this phrase, and I was taken aback by how it resonated much stronger with me than my immediate feelings of nostalgia for the sun-bleached east coast that inspired this particular project.

In many ways this mural sums up what I understand Glasgow’s newest (and only) all-woman street art collective to be – vibrant, layered, bold, precise, thoughtful, yet also warm and carefree. Comprised of Chelsea Frew, Edda Karólína Ævarsdóttir, Erin Bradley-Scott, and Kat Loudon, Cobolt Collective was conceived in 2018 through their desire for more inclusivity and gender balance within the street art community. These four women epitomise collectivity at its core. As graphic designers, sign painters, illustrators, freelancers and business owners, they themselves bring a fusion of skills, interests and backgrounds to this sisterhood. Their collective practice differs from the mainstream street art scene as they root themselves in research. They take their time, building up layers of ideas, concepts and colour, to produce intricate levels of meaning in a single mural. Running various public workshops alongside to their street art practice, their aim is to educate and empower other women to take up space. In many ways, their processes echo their message – complexities that need attention and time to evolve and unravel. With their colour palette acting as sensory triggers, along with the merging of four complimentary yet distinct visual styles, and a seemingly effortless collective confidence, they ultimately encompass the force that is Cobolt Collective.

The immediate associations with their murals, for me, were obvious – the iconic heroines from the 1970’s feminist art movement such as Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and the Guerilla Girls who challenged systematic barriers in bold, inspired and public ways. Their (often) text-based, public and powerful works paved the way for women today to have a voice. It’s important to acknowledge the labour of all of those who so boldly stood up for women’s rights, and I find it imperative for feminists today to continue to actively make space when there seems to be none. Cobolt Collective is carrying on the tradition of strong women making strong work, but I find their softer energy and approach of making so refreshing. It’s important to be reminded of the strength it takes to remain soft and positive in a world where there’s an abundance of (sometimes unnecessary) force where one can often be left feeling like only the loudest voices are heard.

Roxane Gay (re)defines feminism so brazenly, and in a way that I have often felt but have never been able to articulate as eloquently within the pages of Bad Feminist. She states that feminism is complex and evolving and flawed, and that it often seems to be held at an impossible standard, as we sometimes forget that this movement is run by humans who are themselves inherently flawed. Gay carries on and says that because feminism is about choice, then as a feminist, it is her responsibility to fight for the rights and decisions of all women even if their choices are not the ones that she would make herself, and even if those women choose to not be feminists.[i] Change does not happen instantly – it’s complicated, constant, strenuous and often leaves us feeling raw. Feminism should never stray too far from humanity, and I hope that there’s space for us as a society to redefine the conventional notion of strength, and to practice love as an action.

Highly celebrated women such as Tracey Emin, Malala Yousafzai, Greta Gaard, and Margaret Atwood, to name a few, continuously employ language – carefully chosen (s)words that permeate us and help shed light on the realities of women within the current cultural climate. Feminism is not a single voice, but many voices, and it’s important to not lose sight of the urgency to support and celebrate the women in our personal lives – the “everyday women” – our mothers and mother figures, partners, wives, sisters, teachers and friends – whose platform may not be as public, but who deserve just as much of our time and space. I’d like to think that Cobolt Collective’s work contributes to this ongoing sisterhood of everyday thinkers, makers and doers who are occupying public space and are asking not just for change, but systematic change. Feminism has only gotten more complicated over the years, but occupying public space in any capacity proves time and time again to have merit and purpose. Art in public spaces can often build an intimate relationship with its viewers. It integrates more seamlessly into our daily lives and allows for more time for reflection and resonance. I could imagine countless lines from my conversation with these four women plastered in a Guerilla Girls pamphlet, on a Jenny Holzer condom wrapper or stamp, or as one of Tracey Emin’s neon signs.

As we sipped on our coffees, they began to unpack the local lineage of strong feminist activism that exists in Glasgow. Mary Barbour, for example led 20,000 women through the Glasgow Rent Strikes to protest against the irrational rent increase in Govan in 1915. Her tenacity protected thousands of tenants from being displaced from their homes. Barbour later went on to be Govan’s first woman councilor.[ii] They also told me about the Glasgow Girls – a group of young women from Drumchappel High School who fought against the Immigration Service raids that had detained their Belarusian classmate and her family, who were seeking asylum in the UK. Cobolt continued to lay out countless social justice issues that impacted the lives of the locals, but that were tackled with such force and integrity. They made it sound so simple, even though I could feel the energy and emotion in their voices as we continued on. This strength spans decades and finds itself manifesting in various iterations due to the seeming inherent mindset for Glaswegians to simply, as Erin said, “not put up with shit that isn’t fair”. Glasgow is a city that epitomizes what it means to be a part of a community and is made up of people who choose to make their neighbours’ problems their responsibility.

The collective, like their mural’s phrase, tries to keep it simple though they are far from simple-minded. Cobolt chooses to take a positive approach when challenging complex socio-political concerns, teaching by example in order to inspire positive change. Someone will always have an opinion, as they so acutely pointed out, and though systematic barriers like sexism and mansplaining are still issues they face as minorities in their field, their positive approach has garnered highly positive feedback both from within and beyond their communities. Now being more in the public eye, they’re aware of their response-ability with this platform and it seems to only push these women to band together and be more ambitious, crediting their force and confidence to each other – which to me, encapsulates sisterhood in its entirety. It’s an honour to be able to witness Cobolt slowly unravel into their own. As their mural’s phrase sinks into my mind a bit deeper, I’m reminded of Yoko Ono’s infamous words about how the sky is always there for her, and that when she looks up at the sky it’s like she’s looking at an old friend.[iii] That familiarity. I begin to extend my thoughts onto the importance of community, the feeling of inclusion, and our need for connection in both intimate and public ways. I revisited these feelings through this mural the same way as when I’ve allowed my eyes to rest by watching the clouds passing or the stars shining – linking the scale of the mural and the scale of our sky; the feeling of being so big (empowered) yet so small (belonging). Simultaneously. Perhaps as much as we’re constantly (re)learning about the problems and possibilities of our surroundings, the necessity for introspection and to simply look up is just as important.

Juliane Foronda

[i] Gay, Roxane. Bad Feminist: Essays. London: Corsair, 2014, Introduction: pages x-xii.

[ii] Burness, Catriona. „Mary Barbour: Background.“ In Mrs. Barbour’s Daughters, 55-60.

[iii] This Yoko Ono quote that I’m referring to reads: “The sky is always there for me, while my life has been going through many, many changes. When I look up the sky, it gives me a nice feeling, like looking at an old friend.” The date and origin of this exact quote is unknown, but a similar one exists in her Sky Piece I in Acorn.

Writer’s note: I would like to acknowledge that the limitations of language can often effect the ability to describe the full spectrum of gender identities and specificities (especially in texts like these), but I’d like to clarify that when I refer to “woman/women”, that I am inclusive of any person who identifies with this gender on the scale, including but not limited to trans and intersex women, non-binary, and gender fluid individuals.

Photo credits: courtesy of Cobolt Collective and Sweeneypix

Cobolt is a mural collective of four designers – Erin Bradley-Scott, Chelsea Frew, Kat Loudon and Edda Karólína. Aware of the unequal balance of male to female mural artists in Glasgow and across the UK, they decided to start their own collective in the hopes of influencing more women to get involved in large scale mural projects. Despite the fact that women take up 50% of the population and 70% – 80% of art students are female, almost all of the large scale murals in Glasgow are done by a small group of male artists. They decided to form this collective to offer an alternative to the gender imbalance within Glasgow’s mural scene. Cobolt is currently working on numerous murals in collaboration with local and national organizations such as Urban Roots, Barclays Bank, and the University of Glasgow.

www.instagram.com/coboltcollective/

Boekie Woekie, the longest running artists’ bookshop performance

by Erin Honeycutt | Sunnudagur.06.2019 | artzine in english, Viðtöl

Boekie Woekie, the longest running artists’ bookshop performance

In 1975, Ulises Carrión wrote the manifesto The New Art of Making Books. In the manifesto, the Mexican writer, curator, and conceptual artist expanded upon the traditional book form as a three-dimensional site of experience rather than as a container of texts.

The manifesto begins with the dismantling of notions of the book: “A book is a sequence of spaces. Each of these spaces is perceived at a different moment – a book is also a sequence of moments. A book is not a case of words, nor a bag of words, nor a bearer of words.”

A new book era had begun and Carrión urged artists and writers to use newly available printing technologies to bypass traditional book markets as well as to form networks and communities in which to distribute independently. Carrión (1941, San Andrés Tuxtla, Mexico – 1989, Amsterdam) was a key figure in post-1960s avant-garde. Upon arriving in Amsterdam in 1972, he became part of the founding of the art venue, In-Out Center (1972-1975) and in 1975 founded Other Books and So, one of the first artists’ bookstores in the world. In 1979, it became Other Books and So Archive.

Today the artists’ bookshop, Boekie Woekie is carrying forth where Carrión left off and is the longest running artist’s bookstore in the world. The shop now has about 7,000 titles which are almost exclusively self-published or small press books.

The small book shop at Berenstraat 16 was at first only technically allowed to be called a gallery as the founders had art degrees and no background in the selling of books (such is Dutch law.) The labyrinth of publications of varying shapes and sizes makes up the vast collection that seems to exude the history of the place in the many scattered layers of books and publications. The shop is now a relic in the neighborhood in an area now vastly different than how it appeared just thirty years ago. Although the books are cataloged, the brimming shelves and tables are an exhibition in themselves with the search and discovery as part of the unfolding experience.

Some of the artists’ books can be seen as exhibitions in themselves, or rather like the soft imprint of larger material work, an underlayer of vision that can only be found and told in book form. In a conversation with one of the founders, the German artist Jan Voss, I was told in more detail about the shop’s history and his vision of the function of the artists’ book.

What were some of the motivations behind founding the place?

The motivations behind founding the place were more multi-fold than one would perhaps think. Of the six people who founded the place, only two were from the Netherlands while the others came from far away places. Running it now is Henriëtte van Egten from Amsterdam and Rúna Thorkelsdóttir from Iceland and myself from Germany.

In 1985, we needed to find a place. Besides the fact that we had in common boxes full of our own books, we also had Iceland. Iceland was the common link among us in one way or another. Dieter Roth, who had been living in Iceland, was my teacher in Düsseldorf and inspired me to start making books. His books were the first we started to include in the shop that was not our own. Although in 1985 we knew each other individually because we had been making books, we didn’t see this as a real venture. If you had said to me then that I would be sitting here 30 years later in the same book shop, I would say you are mad. Our real motivation was to show our presence in this city and to become identifiable as artists.

Were there other art bookshops at the time?

There were places that had an expanded art books section, but not an artists’ bookshop. We all had a memory of Other Books and So, opened by Ulises Carrión in 1975 where we all had our works. It was open for two years and was never established before or after but just came about as an impulse of the time on a one-man scale. The booksellers were not the ones that were so important but it was young art historians who were using the printed matter as a platform from which to explore and find their way into the world of art history.

I went to the Düsseldorf art academy and I noticed pretty quickly that drawing was something I would be doing. In those parameters, that was what you were expected to do. You drew and it was a confused world in which labels of good and bad are all over the place. It became clear that drawing in a sequence was quite compelling to me and of course, if you have a sequence of drawings, books become a natural answer. I became a student of Dieter Roth. One of the first things he did in Düsseldorf was to buy an offset machine in the late 1960s. Figuring out how it worked and the consequence of all that led to the door of opening Boekie Woekie really.

You can also have the beginning story as was replicated in Amsterdam what then was only ten years earlier. I hadn’t progressed much really. I bought an offset machine and basically, we are still running it. So in the first five years, we were only selling our own works – you could also call it a five-year performance. You could hardly call it a bookshop as it was more a display window. It was ridiculous.

After those first five years, we had come down to three owners, Rúna, Hette and I.

On the first of January, 1991, we moved into this location. The thing is that we are not booksellers; we are artists. Our artistic material is the people with whom we talk and in the shop I treat those people who come in as my material. In the sense that they go to the “artist bookstore” of the town, they don’t really need me. It is not all material anymore. It is performance really.

Are there any books that are of special significance to you?

The Dieter Roth works, of course, but if I give it more thought it is simply the multitude of human endeavors that have evolved into something becoming this little package sliced of the world of a book. This complex thing that a book is with so many faces and so many incredible motivations that can be seen outside the context in which books are happening in our world. An artists’ book exists because it doesn’t count on the newspaper or the television or will be propagated in some professional manner; the thing that will make money as opposed to the thing that makes someone’s craziness go so far to make someone actually do it. The tip of the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg – that is what is visible here. It is making visible this urge for people to have something to say in a way that is penetrating to the ears of the people they are actually speaking to – this enormous choir of ambition and strife and being the human not content with what there is anyhow but who gives that extra thing to it. It is a celebration of being who we are – a celebration of the endeavor.

This article is part one of three articles in a series based on artists‘ books and the multidimensional relationship between the book form and contemporary art.

Erin Honeycutt

Boekie Woekie website: https://boewoe.home.xs4all.nl/

Isle of Art: an interview with the author Sarah Schug

by Ana Victoria Bruno | Sunnudagur.05.2019 | artzine in english, Viðtöl

Isle of Art: an interview with the author Sarah Schug

Sarah Schug is a German journalist based in Brussels who has been traveling in Iceland since 2009, after noticing the lack of books about Icelandic art she decided to take action and fill the gap. Her recently published book Isle of Art constitutes a comprehensive manual for those who want to get an insight of what is going on in the island’s art scene.

Sarah, when did you come in contact with Iceland for the first time? When and why did you decide to write a whole book about its art scene?

The first time I came in contact with Iceland was at the age of 7, when the TV series Nonni & Manni was broadcasted in Germany, and I fell in love with the horses and turf houses and waterfalls. It is since then that I wanted to see Iceland, and I did so for the first time in 2009, if I remember correctly. I totally fell in love with it again, and returned several times. As I’ve been working as an art and culture journalist, and Icelandic artists started popping up in exhibitions in Belgium, where I live, I started to put the two together and wanted to find out more about it. I actually searched for books about the subject, and couldn’t find much, except for monographs. I really felt like there was a gap to be filled. When I told my friend Pauline Miko, a Belgian-Hungarian photographer about the idea and she said she’d do the photos, I decided to just go for it.

Can you tell me something about the process of researching, selecting and interviewing artists and the people of the Icelandic art community?

First there was a lot of reading and desk research, and then I went to live in Reykjavík with my boyfriend for two months, from February to April 2017. I remember, the day we arrived, we directly went to an opening at i8 gallery. During these two months I attended lots of openings and exhibitions, visited art spaces and galleries, and talked with so many people from the Icelandic art world, getting to know the scene from the inside. The lack of existing literature on the subject meant that word of mouth was the principal source of information. In the end you quickly get a grasp for what’s important, which names come up again and again, and so on. Regarding the selection: I spoke to newbies and old timers, Icelanders and foreigners, young and old artists, students and stars. The idea wasn’t to show “the best” artists (whatever that even means), but to paint a full picture of the art scene as a whole by bringing together a rich canon of different voices and perspectives from inside the Icelandic art community.

From left: artists Sara Riel and Ragnar Kjartansson, collector Pétur Arason.

What makes the Icelandic art scene interesting in your opinion?

I think it’s a really intriguing and unique case to examine, not only because of its remote geographic location, but also due to its short history. And of course it’s incredible how vibrant and active it is, how many great artists it has brought about, despite having such a small population. It has all the ingredients necessary for a vibrant scene: commercial galleries, museums, art schools and a multitude of independent art spaces. At the same time, it’s still somehow positioned on the sidelines of the international art market, which is interesting as well.

How does the Icelandic art scene differ from the one you experience everyday in Brussels?

I think there is a spirit of creative freedom, playfulness, collaboration and fearless experimentation that you hardly find anywhere else. Of course there is also no doubt that globalization, digitalization, and the explosion of international travel have caused the island’s art scene to become bigger, more professional, and more diverse. But I found it very pleasant how accessible and welcoming it was, which facilitated the creation of this book extremely. In places like London or Paris, which have very closed-off art scenes, the process would have been very different and more difficult. In Iceland, everyone is just a phone call away; everybody knows each other. News travel fast, and when we arrived up north, we were stunned to find out that people had already been tipped off about us. In that sense, it’s not too different from Brussels or Belgium, whose art scene is also quite open and accessible – I think it’s typical for smaller countries.

The biggest difference is probably the existence or development of an art market and a collector base. Belgium has one of the highest collector densities in the world together with Switzerland, and in Iceland there are maybe five serious collectors. Belgium has a massive number of commercial galleries, Iceland has three. There are no art fairs in Iceland like Art Brussels. It’s a completely different situation. But this positioning slightly on the sidelines of the art market also has its advantages: a certain creative freedom and fearlessness and confidence come with it, which a lot of artists actually mentioned in their interviews.

Installation view: Slæmur Félagsskapur / Bad Company, at Kling og Bang, March – April, 2017.

How do you see the future of the Icelandic art scene?

I think it’s in the process of growing up. Just take the opening of the Marshall House, which happened while I was living in Reykjavík actually. I was lucky to witness this pivotal moment first-hand. Many artists I talked to described it as a game-changing, and I think it has the potential to be a new destination on the international art map. At the same time, many voiced concerns about the grassroots scene. With Nýlo and Kling & Bang in the fancy Marshall House – who will fill that gap? And how will the grassroots scene be strong when there’s a housing crisis going on and space has become unaffordable? But normally art always finds its way – I think we will see more initiatives outside of the city center, and places such as RÝMD or Midpunkt are signs for that. And I think there will be more and more art spaces in the countryside and outside of Reykjavík, a movement which has already begun as well. I was amazed by the high-quality exhibitions I found in small villages such as Hjalteyri or Djúpivogur.

The book is already sold out in Iceland, this constitutes a really good feedback. What do you feel the book has accomplished? And is there something you regret you didn’t manage to include in Isle of Art?

I feel, and that’s the feedback I have been getting by a lot of people from the Icelandic art scene, that the book is a kind of time capsule, showing the Icelandic art scene in its full splendor at this certain point in time, while also looking back on its past and trying to have a look at its future as well. I think the book is valuable to everyone who wants to learn more about what’s going on in Iceland when it comes to art, but it can be also an interesting basis for discussions within the Icelandic art scene itself.

I don’t have any regrets, but of course there are many artists whom I love and respect that are not in the book, because you just can’t include everyone. The more pages you print, the more expensive it gets, and as it is self-financed, we couldn’t afford more pages, 256 is already quite a lot, I think! I would love to do a second book at one point with all the artists I haven’t been able to give pages in this one – so, if someone wants to sponsor or fund it, I’m all ears.

Sigurður Guðmundsson, Eggin í Gleðivík, Djúpivogur, 2009.

The book will launch at the Living Art Museum on the 28^th of May, right? Would you like to tell us something about the event?

Yes, exactly. When the first books arrived in Iceland a lot of people were asking about a launch event and so I decided to organize one. I wanted it to be at a space that is part of the book, and The Living Art Museum has had such significance for Iceland’s art scene that I am very happy to be able to do it there. I’m also super happy about all the support I’m getting: Icelandair offered to ship more books from Belgium, and Reykjavik Roasters are providing coffee. The idea is to create a kind of informal „round table“, an art café if you will, and everyone is invited to stay and chat about the state of the Icelandic art scene (which is something I realised Icelandic artist love to do). One wall will be covered with posters displaying decisive quotes by artists, gallerists, curators, etc. taken from the book, as an entry point and food for thought. The whole idea is not only a nod to Guðmundur Jónsson’s Listamenn, whose frame shop serves as a bit of the living room or of the art scene where everyone hangs out and chats and drinks coffee, but also to the research process of the book, which largely consisted of conversations over coffee.

Is there something else you would like to say before we end the interview?

Just a big thank you to everyone – I’m amazed how warmly I’ve been welcomed by everyone, and how helpful people are, especially the artists themselves. Takk fyrir!

Ana Victoria Bruno

Sarah Schug (1980) is a Brussels-based German journalist who writes about art, culture, design and photography. Her work has been published in The Word Magazine, The Bulletin, H.O.M.E. Magazine, Previiew Journal, Crust Magazine, Tique Art Paper, and others. In 2014 she launched independent online magazine See you there, putting forward Belgium’s cultural scene, and curated the exhibition “No place like home” at Brussels Art Department.

Isle of Art website: https://www.isleofartbook.com

Photo Credit: Pauline Mikó. Ragnar Kjartansson’s portrait: Lilja Birgisdóttir.

The book will launch on Tuesday the 28th at 18:00 at Nýlistasafnið / The Living Art Museum.

« Older Entries

Next Entries »