From the Margin. Contemporany art from Reykjavík

Daníel Magnússon, Hallgrímur Helgason, Ólöf Nordal, Katrín Sigurdardóttir, Helgi Hjaltalín Eyjólfsson. Auður Ólafsdóttir

It is sometimes thought that young Icelandic contemporary artists are obsessed with Iceland. And it is true that in their art, Icelandic artists reflect their concern with the island nation’s cultural image of itself—an image that can also be attributed to the nation’s imaginings concerning itself—and it is also a fact that these artists’ work is very often related to their own surroundings. They are fascinated by the fact that they live at the limits of Europe, that they are an “isolated, remote society on the far edge of the Earth”. This is the usual existential position of Icelanders in the world, but it is not a patriotic, romantic sublimation. On the contrary, these young artists take a critical look at the reality in Iceland today.

This special position is tackled from various points of view in the works of these five artists from Reykjavik, born between 1958 and 1968. In keeping with Iceland’s cultural and historical tradition, the question that constantly emerges is the comparison and relations with the outside world. Where does this encounter between the local and international sphere take place? How do they relate to each other? What are the areas of contact between an island with a population of 300,000 and the multinational society of the rest of the world? In their works, the artists consider the ‘frontiers’ of an island with a legacy of landscape painting, an island far from the centre and a small population that lacks social contact. These works deal with the contradiction between a nostalgia for the country when viewed from the outside world and a desire to see other lands; they deal with the opposition between the male and the female, between the strange conglomeration of international multiculturalism and the old national traditions, the ‘poverty’ of one of the richest nations on the planet and the moral hypocrisy that can be seen in this nation without an army when there is talk of international conflicts. In these works, we also find those infrequently established bonds between utility and aesthetics and between art and craft, links that are characteristic of Icelandic art and which are probably more evident in Iceland than other countries.

On display in this exhibition are works on video, photographs, paintings produced using a computer, sculptures, installations and objects made of wood.

Auður Ólafsdóttir

SPONSORS
caja madrid obra social

COLLABORATES     
fujifilm
schilling cafè
ràdio4

ORGANIZATION
ICUB
Reikjavik museum