23 May 2024: Reykjavik Galleries

Iceland’s National Galleries

We decided to wander around and see what we could find before meeting up with our friend Élisabet at the Harpa Concert Hall in the afternoon.

We did a lot, so there will be a few posts.

This post is about our visit to two of Iceland’s national galleries:

Listasafn Íslands (National Gallery of Island)

Safnahúsið (The House of Collections)

There is some excellent art on display with an Icelandic feel.

Listasafn Íslands (National Gallery of Island)

listasafn.is/en/

The National Gallery of Iceland was established in 1884. It has significant collections of Icelandic Art, International Art and Contemporary Art.

The following in particular caught my eye.

Steina: Borealis (1993)

This is an installation with several video screens and audio.

Steina’s magnificent video and sound installation Borealis is presented at the National Gallery for the first time since it was first shown in 1993, over three decades ago. Borealis, meaning “northern”, dates from a period when the artist turned her attention outside the studio to the natural world. Here, she returned to her native Iceland, where she made the video and sound field recordings of Arctic flora and of water cascading over rocks and soil that form the basis of the work. The videos are projected at an immense scale - each of the four screens measuring nearly four meters high - such that the viewer becomes immersed in a realm of turbulent movement and polyphonic sound. Moving back and forth between clear focus and blur, the imagery seems by turns representational and abstract. The work has been called “an ode to nature and its elemental forces.”

Borealis was created using several significant technical innovations. First was the rotation of the camera during recording, which resulted in tilted, omnidirectional angles that create a sense of spatial disorientation. Second, the video itself under- went in-studio manipulation, where at times the flow of water was reversed, subverting both narrative time and the laws of physics. In the installation, the video projectors are turned on end to orient the ratio vertically, not horizontally, as we are acc- ustomed to viewing. Finally, the digital images are projected onto translucent screens so that each video appears in mirror image on the reserve side.

The screens, arranged in an architectonic configuration like an open-ended room within the gallery, compel the viewer to experience the work interactively. By walking between and around the screens, the viewer observes the video projections in endlessly shifting juxtapositions. In the darkened space, the translucent screens take on a kind of immateriality, further distancing the subject’s relationship to nature, emphasising instead the inherent aural and visual beauty of the electronic medium.

Born in Iceland in 1940, Steina (née Steinunn Bjarnadóttir) grew up in Reykjavík, where she studied classical violin. Today she is regarded as a groundbreaking figure in the field of video art. In 1959, on a scholarship to study music in Prague, she met Bohuslav “Woody” Vasulka (1937-2019), a student of mechanics and filmmaking. They married and moved to the United States in 1965. After working as a freelance violinist, Steina turned to videc and documentary filmmaking, ultimately creating an extensive body of work independently, and in collaboration with Woody. Since 1980 she has lived and worked in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The House of Collections

listasafn.is/en/visit/the-house-of-collections/

The House of Collections is the newest addition to the the National Gallery of Iceland. Originally build in 1908 in order to house the National Library, the National Archives, the collection of the Natural History Museum of Iceland and the nations collection of antique relics, it today presents the exhibition Resistance, featuring treasures of the collection of the National Gallery of Iceland.

The More info links for each work are worth your time. The tell more or the story in each work and ask some provoking questions.

Entrance to the House of Collections. Many treats inside.

Hjörleifur Sigurðsson (1925-2010) - Rain, 1973

More info: hjorleifur-sigursson-1925-2010-rain-1973.pdf

Ólöf Einarsdóttir (1959) - Growth, 2008

More info: olof-einarsdttir-1959-growth-2008.pdf

Georg Guðni Hauksson (1961–2011) - Untitled, 2008

More info: georg-guoni-hauksson-1961-2011-untitled-2008.pdf

Guðbjörg Lind Jónsdóttir (1961) - Precipitation, 2018

More info: guobjorg-lind-jonsdottir-1961-precipitation-2018.pdf

þórdis Erla Zoega (1988) - Circulation (2022)

Another installation (but I didn’t record the name or artist.) Different coloured light beams created patterns from your shadow as you walked around the space.

That’s me taking the photo.

Steina (1940) - Of the North, 2001

More info: steina-1940-of-the-north-2001.pdf

Jón Stefánsson (1881–1962) - Summer Night, Loons at the Þjórsá River, 1929

More info: jon-stefansson-1881-1962-summer-night-loons-at-the-thjorsa-river-1929.pdf

Hulda Hákon (1956) - Swans, 2005

More info: hulda-hakon-1956-swans-2005.pdf

We saw a lot of these birds as we travelled around Iceland. The are called Whooper Swans. Icelanders just call them swans.

Eggert Pétursson (1956) - Untitled, 2019

More info: eggert-petursson-1956-untitled-2019.pdf

Jón Gunnar Árnason (1931-1989) - The Heart 1968

The Heart of Jón Gunnar Árnason is a human-sized sculpture made of steel with an electric motor that shakes and emits an unsettling sound when activated. Despite the coarse materials, such as exhaust pipes, bumpers, and scrap metal, Jón Gunnar’s heart accurately represents a human heart. Before starting the work, Jón Gunnar thoroughly studied the structure of the human heart, examining preserved hearts in formalin and drawing them. Unlike a human heart, this sculpture stands alone, smooth and shiny, on four legs, like an independent entity that is both captivating and intimidating. The shape, materials, and noise produced by the heart can be interpreted as a distortion of one of our most vital organs, reflecting the complex relationship between humans and machines in the technological age.

Having recently undergone open-heart surgery, this work was very interesting.

Jóhannes S. Kjarval (1885–1972) - Shipwrecked Sailor, 1929

More info: johannes-s-kjarval-1885-1972-shipwrecked-sailor-1929.pdf

Kristín Jónsdóttir (1888–1959) - Fish Processing by Eyjafjörður, 1914

More info: kristin-jonsdottir-1888-1959-fish-processing-by-eyjafjordur-1914.pdf

Birgir Snæbjörn Birgisson (1966) - Boy on a Boat and Kittiwakes, 1995

More info: birgir-snaebjorn-birgisson-1966-boy-on-a-boat-and-kittiwakes-1995.pdf

At first glance, Birgir Snæbjörn’s painting seems to be about the innocence of childhood, but on closer scrutiny the realities of life are not far away. The boat is half full of water, and the boy appears to have abandoned the attempt to bail it out. The kittiwakes look on, perched on the gunwale. They weigh the boat down a little, but also give a faint hope of rescue.