Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.08.2007, Síða 14

B6_RVK_GV_INFO_ISSUE 1_007_INTERVIEW/ART
NÝLÓ – The Living Art Museum – is one of
downtown Reykjavík’s more progressive gal-
leries and has through the years offered some
groundbreaking exhibits by leading contem-
porary artists. The Grapevine checked out its
current show.
Picture an enormous white room. In one cor-
ner, a pink golf ball is suspended mid-air via
some contraption or other, a lo-fi opera blaring
from it. A curtain of pearls marks the entry to
another room, from whence you can hear a
commotion of sorts. Artist Hekla Dögg Jóns-
dóttir sits on a windowsill facing her pink golf
ball and her curtain of pearls that’s perhaps
meant to indicate a looking-glass one passes
through to fully enter the surreal world of her
exhibit, Liminality, although that’s as open
to interpretation as any of the other objects
on display. Jónsdóttir, blonde, conservatively
dressed, is talking about air-travel:
“It usually takes me two or three days to
move past the transitional period that travel
presupposes,” she tells me. “In that time, I
may become more open to suggestions. You
get dizzy. A lot of things happen differently
when you’re in a state of dizziness.”
Jónsdóttir holds advanced degrees from
the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and
California Institute of The Arts. A co-founder
of prestigious grassroots gallery Kling & Bang
and member of the team behind the ambitious
Klink & Bank project, she currently divides
her time between New York and Reykjavík in
between putting on exhibitions around the
world. It can thus be deducted that she is
a) a veteran of the Icelandic art world,
b) a modern day jet-setter, and
c) no stranger to the held-back feeling associ-
ated with frequently changing time zones and
environments.
This might in turn provide inspiration for some
of Jónsdóttir’s art. Themes of transition and
those frequently encountered places ‘in-be-
tween’ appear strongly in her ongoing display
at downtown’s Living Art Museum (Nýlistasa-
fnið, or NÝLÓ for short). Amidst neon-sculp-
tures, a wall of fire, a babbling fountain of light
and the aforementioned pink golf ball, there
seems to lie some sort of unifying theme or
terminology, at least to the extent that they are
brought together under the moniker ‘Liminal-
ity.’ She explains where it came from:
Coining Adjectives
“The title actually came after I put the exhibit
together. I stumbled upon the term while I
was in the finishing stages of setting it up and
was looking for a translation of “threshold”
– learning about it was a lot like reading about
the things I had been dealing with in my art for
a long time. It was like someone had coined
an adjective to describe my experiments and
interests,” she says and seems authentically
excited about the find. After a short pause,
she continues:
“If you look up “liminality” you will find
that people have gone to great lengths to ex-
plain it and there are different and sometimes
conflicting interpretations. On one hand, you
have the kind of ‘airy’ talk that accompanies
the exhibition’s catalogue [a lengthy conver-
sation between Jónsdóttir and two friends],
and on the other you have this big, weighty
word, LIMINALITY. I think it’s a good analogy
for what’s going on in the exhibition, those
two worlds meeting.”
Science Vs. Superstition
We talk about those two worlds, what they
mean and what’s between them. “In that third
place, that threshold where the two meet,
that’s a space where things are possible that
aren’t necessarily possible on this side, and
not on the other one either. In that place,
science and superstition go hand in and, and
aren’t mutually exclusive. Science is often an
attempt to exclude superstition, but they go
together in this interzone and I am interested
in working with that, simultaneously exploring
the dimensions of mind and matter.”

She says she is happy with how Liminality
turned out. “I didn’t know how things would
go together. I had no working model, except
for in my mind, and I didn’t know how the
exhibition space would look when taken over
by these different visual units. It wasn’t until
the day before the opening, after everything
had gone up, that things came together and
I could really see how they worked in a bigger
context. It retains a connection to the threshold
and it engages the room.”
On The Conditions for Making Art
in Reykjavík
“The conditions for making and presenting
art in Reykjavík today are very positive in many
respects. We have to work on maintaining
those positive aspects and find ways to add to
them. Even if everything’s working well right
now, that ball can easily be dropped and we
need to take care not to. When I returned to
Iceland and took up my current ‘life between
two worlds’ in 2000, I did find there was a lot
lacking in terms of conditions for grassroots
artist. Our formation of Kling & Bang in 2003
was perhaps a response to that in a way. The
Klink & Bank project – which wound up being
enormous – was also a sort of turning point.
“I feel things are currently being man-
aged nicely, and take the Living Art Museum’s
direction as an example. There’s a lot of ambi-
tion around and it seems to me that the art
world here is moving on to a higher plane.
Maintaining Kling & Bang, with its artist-run
atmosphere, as well as establishing new and
refined venues is important.”
But Is It Any Good?
While Jónsdóttir is happy to comment on the
state and conditions to make art in Iceland,
she is – understandably, given the inbred na-
ture of Iceland’s art world – less willing to
point out specific artists and projects worthy
of our readers’ attention. “Oh I want to name
dozens of names, but if I start counting them
I’ll probably forget someone really important
and upset them. I’d rather just advise people
to follow the scene closely, as there are many
talented people operating here.”
And as for the art itself? “Well, I think
Icelandic art is very good. It naturally has some
distinguishing characteristics, for instance it’s
usually made and presented in quick spurts
where the artist often completes it in the ex-
hibition space, as I did here. The traditionally
Icelandic method of work, where things are
finished all at once, in marathon sessions, is
honoured in the art world. And that is of course
reflected in the output.”

Exploring Borders at NÝLÓ
Text by Haukur S. Magnússon Photo by Gulli
“Even if everything’s
working well right now,
that ball can easily be
dropped and we need to
take care not to.”
RVK_GV_INFO_ISSUE 1_007_FILMS_B7
After several hectic attempts at past film festivals to
provide Icelandic audiences with numerous viewing
options, the folks at Greenlight Films have chosen
to do something a little different this time. For this
year’s Greenlight Film Festival (Græna ljósið), also titled
“Greenlight Film’s ‘Movie Days,’” the promoters have
chosen 18 films of incomparable quality, taken from
trips to film festivals across the globe.
‘Movie Days’, which starts on August 15 and last until
August 29, has called for the 2-week long reservation
of the only theatre in downtown Reykjavik, Regnboginn
(meaning “Rainbow”). Most of the 18 brilliant films
will be shown almost daily, but Michael Moore’s new
muckraking insta-classic, Sicko, which exposes the malice
and greed behind privatised health care systems, will be
shown daily if not twice a day.
Greenlight Films is an organisation that provides films
for “people who love films a little more than the average
person,” as president Ísleifur Þórhallsson claims. As such,
the theatres operate under slightly different conditions
for these movie buffs. For one, there is no intermission
for cigarette and candy breaks; the film is to be watched
in its entirety. Also, there are few trailers at Greenlight
screenings, with at most two trailers and only a couple
of minutes of advertising. Finally, guests cannot buy a
ticket if the show has already started, thus limiting the
noisy interruptions by popcorn dropping late-comers.
They put the shhh back in moving showing.
The films have been divided into three categories:
World, Documentary, and Midnight (the last is basically just
an excuse to show something particularly controversial.)
Showing times will be from 18:00 until 22:00 PM on
weekdays and from 15:00 until 22:00 on weekends.
Tickets can be purchased (obviously buy beforehand!)
from Midi.is.
Among the festival’s highlights are:
Zoo – Short for “zoophile”, this documentary re-
examines the life of a conservative Seattle family man
who died after having a sexual encounter with a horse.
Rather than being a graphic shock-piece, the film retells
Kenneth Pinyan’s story in a humanely haunting way.
The film was one of 16 winners at the Sundance film
festival.
Death of a President – This British fictional documentary
(or mockumentary) chronicles a situation in which
American president G. W. Bush is assassinated on
October 19, 2006 after an economics speech in Chicago.
In the film, Dick Cheney takes over presidency, enacts
the Patriot Act III, and contemplates war on Syria, the
birthplace of Bush’s assassin.
Fuck – An American documentary on perhaps one of
the most useful words in the English language, Fuck: A
Four Letter Film was produced by the same people who
did The Aristocrats. Fuck deals with the word’s place in
the postmodern world and censorship. It also features
interviews with Ice Cube, Pat Boone, and Hunter S.
Thompson.
Greenlight Film Festival
Text by Chandler Frederick
Lárus & Lárus
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Live the multicultural
night in the National
Museum of Iceland
Program 19–23
Guided tours in eight languages
(Swedish: 19:00, Russian: 19:30, Icelandic: 20:00, Polish: 20:30,
French: 21:00, Italian: 21:30, English: 22:00, German: 22:30)
Troubadours from around the world
Photographs of West Icelanders by Guðni Þórðarson
A moving feast – multicultural exhibition
Coffee tasting – global samples for you
Novelties in the Museum shop
No entrance fee – welcome
F
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Suðurgata 41 · 101 Reykjavík · Tel. +354 530 2200 · www.nationalmuseum.is
WANTED:
We need 50 volunteers for REYFI
Culturefestival in
The Nordic House Reykjavik
18th – 26th of August
We are looking for people who are
minimum 16 years old and who are
interested in all kinds of culture.
Send information about yourself to:
or
Futher information on:
and
Norcic house, Sturlugötu 5, 101 RVK, sími 551 7030
elisabethk@nordice.is
talvikki@nordice.is
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