Artefacts from the restless art’s excavations
History occurs in a space between the archive and life, between the past that is being collected and reality, understood as everything that has not been collected.[1] Today the Living Art Museum - Nýlistasafnið as well known as Nýló publishes and makes...
Hreinn Friðfinnsson’s assistants on the outside looking in (from the inside)
Recently on view at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin from September 28th, 2019 to January 5, 2020, was a retrospective of Hreinn Friðfinnsson’s work To Catch a Fish with a Song: 1964 – Today. It was organized in partnership with Centre d’Art Contemporain...
New, dystopian and unexpected: “I’m notreallyinterested in anythinggreaterthan life”
Disarray. Carefully scripted disarray, with plastic-wrappers, video-makers, light-fixtures and oil slicks, peculiar, confusing, mysterious; welcome to Knut Eckstein’s constructed world. “Tread lightly,” the woman beside me warns, “there are things on the floor.”...
“Lucky Me?” by Lucky 3 at Kling & Bang
In the exhibition Lucky Me? the art-collective Lucky 3, consisting of Darren Mark, Dýrfinna Benita Basalan, and Melanie Ubaldo, draws to attention their experiences that fall in between identification with- and marginalization of the Filipino community and culture....
“Kiss the day goodbye” by Charles Atlas at i8 gallery
As the sun disappears from the sky in Iceland, it seems fitting that i8 Gallery should choose an exhibition of this kind to end the year and take us into the new decade. Charles Atlas’s 2015 video installation Kiss the Day Goodbye displays a romanticized vision of the...
A! performance festival: in conversation with director Hlynur Hallsson
In its 5th iteration, A! Performance Festival returned this year to galvanise Akureyri’s art scene. Showcasing the interplay between visual arts and performance, the annual four-day festival welcomed a variety of established and up-and-coming artists onto the Northern...
“It’s buzzing with energies”: Unpacking the Euro-Icelandic Art Exchange
Like an intricate seam, there are three layers of cultural thread which stitch Iceland’s art scene together with Europe. The first thread is interwoven through the individuals; the fibres shaped by the artists and the personal Euro-Icelandic connections they forge....
The Portal, Illuminated – Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson at Berg Contemporary
In a comic-book reminiscent and delightfully playful fashion, Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson unveils an intertwining of nature, human, and cosmic energy in The Thirteenth Month at Berg Contemporary. Styrmir connects the human to our supernatural and earthly elements,...
“You are the Input” by Ingunn Fjóla Ingthorsdóttir at Gallerie Herold, Bremen
Arriving on the train to Bremen, I found the artist-run Galerie Herold by following a set of abandoned train tracks from the station. Upon arriving in the gallery, I stood in the main door frame and looked into the exhibition by Ingunn Fjóla Ingthorsdóttir, seeing the...
Pavilion Nordico: a bridge between the Nordic countries and Argentina
I met with Sara Løve Daðadóttir, Josefin Askfelt and Emil Willumsen who are part of the team behind Pavilion Nordico in Buenos Aires, a project established in early 2019 which functions as exhibition space, residency and art centre for Nordic creators. The project...
A Kassen’s exhibition “Mother and Child” at Kling & Bang
The exhibition Mother and Child by A Kassen acts on the relationships between the viewers, the architecture and the artworks, inviting us to look at things from different points of view and to take into account the physical space surrounding us and the works. Mother...
A Violent Absurdity: Valheimur at Hverfisgallerí
Valheimur - a world is created, one that has semblances to our natural order and the social stories our cultures echo, yet is a product and figment of artistic imagination. In Sigurður Ámundason and Matthías Rúnar Sigurðsson recently opened exhibition at...
The last exhibition at Listastofan: a conversation with founder Martyna Daniel
I had a chat with the founder and director of the artist-run space Listastofan, Martyna Daniel. We talked about the closure of Listastofan, and looked back at its history, its accomplishments and its last exhibition WE RUINED EVERYTHING. Listastofan has been active...
Conversations with contemporary Latvian art in Akureyri
Attacked by a cold morning breeze and a church bell sound of the North, I enter the Akureyri Art Museum as one of the first guests. The stairs of freshly renovated art space leads to Talaðu við mig! / Runā ar mani! / Talk to Me! titled show, a wide exhibition of 19...
May You Live in Interesting Times
As occurs every odd year or so, visual art works are scattered around the islands of Venice, Italy for public viewing. La Biennale di Venezia was founded by the Venice City Council in 1895 at a time when Expo shows, designed to show the achievements of the nations,...
“Chromo Sapiens”: Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir/Shoplifter’s installation at the 58th Venice Biennale
The Icelandic pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale features Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir/Shoplifter’s installation Chromo Sapiens, an astonishing hair cave, a monstrous but at the same time a soft and colourful being which embraces the visitors into its warm and...
Dreaming While Curating Mild Humidity – The (Digital) Age of Aquarius / Litils Háttar Væta – Stafræn öld vatnsberans
The digital world is a dream world of a sort. We are online in virtual reality not geographically locatable yet still encased in a persona as an extension of our offline selves. The body is often seen as a container for the mind. When Donna Haraway expressed the idea...
“Event Horizon” at BERG Contemporary: a conversation with artists Marie Søndergaard Lolk, Sigrid Sandström & Hulda Stefánsdóttir
I spoke with the artists of Berg Contemporary's recently opened exhibition, Event Horizon. Marie Søndergaard Lolk, Sigrid Sandström & Hulda Stefánsdóttir told me about their practice in non-representational painting, the particularities of working jointly yet...
On Sculpture, an artbook by Eygló Harðardóttir
In the 1975 manifesto, The New Art of Making Books, by Ulises Carrión, 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...
Ólafur Elíasson Opens a Retrospective at the Tate Modern, Activates a Participatory Togetherness
Ólafur Elíasson's In Real Life at the Tate Modern presents a deeply moving collection of work that encompasses a full range of emotion, medium and perception into one intensely thought proving experience. Nodding to Elíasson's 2003 The Weather Project at the Tate, In...
A table or a hand: on the progressive hospitality within Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson’s Vanishing Point: where species meet
A wooden bespoke table grounds itself by the River Gota. A seabird soars above it, and clouds are scattered across the otherwise blue sky. These early views of Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson’s Vanishing Point: where species meet act not only as an introduction, but an...