Reykjavík Grapevine - 01.02.2013, Síða 18

Today, 20 artists are members of the
Muses collective, many of whom
have been personally recruited by
Rakel. Their styles range from clas-
sic oil paintings to street art to mixed
media.
“My focus was first off all, young
up-and-coming artists with differ-
ent styles,” Rakel says. “So you'll see
an artist doing traditional painting
alongside another with a background
in street art who hasn’t been to tradi-
tional art school who is doing inter-
esting things.”
THE ART OF
MANAGEMENT
Muses also handles what many art-
ists consider the less glamorous
side of being an artist—the business
aspects. Rakel handles everything
from scouting locations, to promo-
tion to curating the show. She also
helps maintain the website, where
each artist has his or her own profile,
digital gallery and links to purchase
dozens of original paintings, draw-
ings, sculptures and prints. She takes
commission on any sold works, and
artists also pay a small fee to partici-
pate in the pop-up shows.
“I think self-promotion and mar-
keting is actually an artist’s worst
nightmare,” says Víðir Mýrmann, an
artist who specialises in oil paintings
and showed his work at the most
recent pop up show. “To put a price
on your work, it’s a constant head-
ache for artists. I just want to spend
my days in the studio, working on
my paintings and don’t want to really
think about the other things.”
Apart from Muses, many of the
artists also host their own shows and
promote their own work, and none
of them are exclusively managed by
Rakel. However, having Muses on
their side has made breaking into the
art world easier for some.
“To physically go somewhere with
a huge portfolio and be like, ‘Hi here I
am!’ Trying to sell my ass; it’s difficult
for me,” says Sylvía Dögg Halldórs-
dóttir, an artist who works with mixed
media and also showed work at the
most recent pop-up exhibition. “This
is more comfortable.”
FREEDOM TO ROAM
Not being tied down to a space gives
Rakel the freedom to hold shows
wherever she wants. The most recent
one in the Höfðatún building was an
art show in the sky, with sweeping
views of downtown Reykjavik serv-
ing as a backdrop for the
sleek, simple show.
The location of the
shows becomes
part of the allure,
and being 19
floors up in one
of Reykjavík’s
tallest buildings,
it’s easy to see
why: the venue
becomes part of
the installation.
Locations for past
shows have included aban-
doned industrial areas, an old fish
factory and a soda factory. Rakel
says these places can also be more
inviting to people, as they aren’t as
formal as traditional galleries. “I want
to bring the art closer to the public,”
Rakel says. “Some people find it a bit
overwhelming, to go into this white
cube, like going to church or some-
thing.”
That’s not to say that sometime
in the future Muses won’t branch
out and have a physical gallery.
Rakel briefly opened a small space
on Laugavegur with two clothing
designers, but the space didn’t last
more than three months. “It’s just
a fact that running an art gallery is
expensive,” Rakel says. “So
I just decided that I was
going to develop it
online and work
on these pop-up
exhibitions. But
of course hope-
fully we will have
some kind of
space for people
to come.”
Until then,
Rakel has been work-
ing to make Muses as
accessible as possible. The
site is available in English and Ice-
landic, and because of a new col-
laboration with an art historian from
the Czech Republic, there are plans
to translate it into Czech as well. The
collective has also received invita-
tions to host shows in Austria, Czech
Republic and Denmark.
“There are so many ways that
we can make art visible,” Rakel says.
“We don’t have to take some painting
and fly it across the world; we can do
a lot of things here.”
- KIRSTEN O’BRIEN
Finding Your Muse
Reykjavík's only online gallery showcases Icelandic art worldwide
ART 18The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 2 — 2013
“
„
I want to bring the art closer
to the public. Some people
find it a bit overwhelming, to go
into this white cube, like going to
church or something
Unlike traditional galleries, Muses has no brick and mortar structure, and instead exists completely online at Muses.is.
Rakel Sævarsdóttir, who has a background in art theory and a Master’s degree in communication, began building Muses
with the help of a programmer in 2009 while she was on maternity leave. She began contacting artists and a year later,
in 2010, the site was launched and in 2011, she put on the first pop-up show. “The idea is to display the art online and
then enhance it with these pop up exhibitions,” Rakel says.
Go check out Muses at www.muses.is!
Lovetank: Sylvía Halldórsdóttir

For a tiny island nation that doesn’t even
have a national army, “war” is something
that happens overseas. However, artist Sylvía
Halldórsdóttir, who has been part of Muses
since 2011, is bringing the realities of conflict
a little closer to home.
She began focusing on war imagery after
spending time in Holland as an art student
in 2003. While she was going to school, she
watched as young soldiers were deployed
to aid US soldiers in the invasion of Iraq and
Afghanistan. It was an especially striking
experience for her, being born and raised
in Reyðarfjöður, a small town in eastern
Iceland.
“It was really weird finding myself in a big
city, in a different country, where you had
young people going to war. Every time I went
to the train station, I could see young people
all suited up, ready to go,” she says. “I had
never seen anything like that before.” At the
time, she was also keeping up with news and
current events for a newspaper column, and
she was struck by the gruesome realities of
war: mothers losing children, nations losing
their young people and innocent civilians
dying in the crossfire.
It was this that led her to adopt the artis-
tic identity she paints under today: Lovetank.
“I started out in Holland painting images of
victims and objects of war, and from there I
painted my first Lovetank,” she says, describ-
ing original as a large black tank made from
a pattern of hearts with a soft pink back-
ground.
Slyvía’s work ranges from paintings to
mixed media pieces, and although she often
uses bright colours, she says she doesn’t
paint to simply make pretty pictures. Some-
times her imagery can be tough to swallow.
“People have told me my work is beautiful
but some of it can be tough to look at,” she
says, pointing to a massive canvas behind
her, which features a woman cloaked in a
black hood with a pained expression, set
against a has a blood red background. Slyvía
explains that it was inspired by a photo of a
woman whose son had died in battle.
“People don’t want to look at bad things,
they want to look at happy things—things
that make them feel good. My paintings
tend to be happy colours, but kind of dark
imagery.”
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