Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.05.2014, Qupperneq 20

20The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 5 — 2014
Feature | Art
For a small country, Iceland sure gets a lot
of attention.
From the resounding pop of the bank-
ers’ currency bubble, to Reykjavík’s an-
archist mayor, to controversial whaling
practices and the Eyjafjallajökull volcano
belching ash across Europe, Iceland has
made global headlines regularly in re-
cent years. Add to this a disproportionate
number of breakthrough musicians and
one-of-a-kind landscapes that draw cam-
era-toting tourists from around the world,
and it’s safe to say this country has become
something of a celebrity in itself.
Attention on this scale had not been
paid to Icelandic contemporary art until
the recent rise of two genuine stars, both
on i8’s roster. One is Ólafur Elíasson, the
Danish-Icelandic artist known for such
visionary works as installing waterfalls in
New York’s Hudson River and the sun at
the Tate Modern in London. He is also the
artist behind the glittering façade of Har-
pa, Reykjavík’s concert hall and conference
centre.
The other is Ragnar Kjartansson,
whose carefree, playfully cross-discipline
methodology continues to yield memora-
ble artworks. His recent epic multi-screen
video performance, “The Visitors,” fea-
tures a group of notable musicians impro-
vising a repeated mournful verse alone in
different rooms of a decaying American
manor house. It is an ambitious, large-
scale work that is joyful and affecting,
funny and profound.
At the age of 33, Ragnar became the
youngest artist to represent Iceland at the
Venice Biennale, and already has an im-
pressive string of solo shows to his name.
He seems too well meaning to be dubbed
the "enfant terrible” of anything in par-
ticular, but the shoe does fit, even if a little
awkwardly jammed on.
A Family Affair
i8 started as a small family-run enterprise
in 1995. The gallery’s director, Börkur Ar-
narson, was running a design company at
Ingólfsstræti 8 above the space that would
become the gallery’s first of three homes.
“I had just moved back from London
after living there for almost ten years,” he
says. “There was an office below me that
Jonni Sigmars, the film director, used.
He was struggling to write a script down
there, and one day as he was writing and
smoking, his cigarette didn’t go out when
he put it in the basket, and it caught fire.
The space filled with smoke, the landlord
kicked him out, and the space became
empty. I called my mother and said, ‘may-
be this is the time to open a gallery.’
Börkur’s mother, Edda Jónsdóttir, was
an artist herself, but was becoming in-
creasingly interested in the idea of show-
ing other people’s work. She jumped at the
opportunity. Together they cleaned and
altered the space, and the i8 gallery was
born.
“My mother was a printmaker and
part of a community of artists, but she
didn’t necessarily look to them for the
work,” Börkur explains. “Instead, she went
straight to what she was most interested
in. It was clear from the start that this was
not a gallery that would collect proposals
from people, but would show whatever it
wanted. And that’s how it has been ever
since, in the sense that we kept that inde-
pendence.”
Art Without Borders
Börkur’s role grew gradually and naturally
over time as the gallery began participat-
ing in international art fairs, which proved
to be a pivotal decision. “We quickly start-
ed showing artists from outside Iceland,”
he says, “and the idea of this borderless,
art-focused mentality came very early on.
It’s a cliché to say it’s ‘a gallery without bor-
ders,’ but a lot of these Icelandic artists we
represent, they’re living around the world.
We have a Canadian artist who lives in
London, and an Icelandic artist who lives
in China. Does it really matter where peo-
ple are from at this point?”
i8’s expansive approach has led to an
exciting diverse programme of exhibi-
tions. Recent shows have varied widely,
from a minimalist two-person show fea-
turing Sachiko M’s sound art installation
and Ingólfur Arnarsson's concrete works
and works on paper, to Eggert Péturs-
son's oil painting 'portraits' of Icelandic
flora. But there are strands connecting the
group, even if they’re not immediately ap-
parent.
“We’re not just interested in the art.
“We’re also interested in the artists' wider
work, their message, their need and long-
ing to communicate something. The work
has to capture us. To be honest, it usually
interests us on an aesthetic level, but it def-
initely has to be intellectually or conceptu-
ally stimulating, too,” Börkur says.
“It’s pleasurable, for us, to surprise
people, to give them something they
didn’t see coming, but that makes sense
to us. Sometimes people see threads that
run through our programme, and I often
agree with them when they point those
out, but others can’t see any connection.
To us, there’s always a perfect connection,
even if we can't easily define it.”
On A Small Rock
i8 has never been a public institution
with a mandate to follow, and Börkur
maintains that it’s the quality of their
international roster that has sculpted
i8’s identity and reputation, rather than
any role the gallery might have played
as a gateway for Icelandic art.
“We’re not paid for by the govern-
ment in any way, and we’re not receiv-
ing any subsidies,” he says. “Early on
we applied for funds and got support,
but not now. The overall representation
of nationalities might be an important
issue in the wider world, of course, but
it’s not the agenda of this gallery to be
like the Olympic Games in that sense.”
That being said, Börkur feels confi-
dent that i8’s roster is a good example
of Icelandic contemporary art. “I’m not
shy about saying that,” he concedes,
although he maintains that it isn’t the
gallery’s goal. “A gallery is nothing
more than a group of artists that are
represented there. No matter where it is
in the world, you like a gallery because
it holds those 10 artists that you think
are interesting and they do good shows.
That’s what makes a good gallery. If,
however, we ended up with no Icelandic
artists that might be kind of odd, so the
balance has to be right.”
Running an art gallery from a country
of 320,000 people does, however, present
some economic and geographical chal-
lenges. “We’re on a tiny rock in the North
Atlantic, and I can count the Icelandic col-
lectors on my right hand,” he says. “So, we
do more than 80% of our business else-
where.”
With an international market that con-
nects to artfairs, museums, collectors and
viewers far outside of Iceland’s borders,
it’s interesting to contemplate exactly who,
and where, i8’s primary audience is. After
all, the space is located far from the bright
lights and big cities in which the majority
of the world’s art business is based.
“It’s always pleasurable when people
walk through the door and see the show,”
Börkur says. “Fairs don’t do justice to art.
They are sad places to show, with wobbly
walls and strip lights. They’re necessary,
and functional, and social, for sure. But
gallery spaces are where you can really
experience the work. Maybe the visitors
don’t buy anything, or even say anything,
but they come in to experience the art. And
that matters to us.”
The upside is that being the sole Ice-
landic presence has proved useful in es-
tablishing i8’s identity at international
art fairs, providing an important point of
differentiation in a crowded, cosmopolitan
environment.
“Of course, people connect our identity
with Reykjavík,” he explains. “Being from
here means a lot for how we’re perceived.
The fact that we’re based in Reykjavík is
beneficial—we’ve got big wings because
of that. People are amazed by the creative
output from this country, so we always
have that in our back pocket when we go
somewhere. If my gallery were in Copen-
hagen and I were running the exact same
programme, I don’t know if it would be the
same.”
A Lack Of Tradition
A common question for anyone connected
to the Icelandic art scene is what stimu-
lates such a rich culture in such a sparse
populace. The answer is complex, of
course, with different people citing every-
thing from the dark winters and cultural
isolation to the scarcity of critique or the
absence of well-ploughed furrows of cul-
tural history.
“It’s very hard to know what specific
characteristics I would ascribe to Icelandic
art,” Börkur says. “I mean, in the ‘70s and
‘80s, there was SÚM, an artist-run move-
ment, and people talk about its legacy.
We work with three guys from that time,
and there’s no doubt that they had a direct
influence on the art we see here today.
There’s a connection to The Netherlands
that still exists, and to post-Fluxus con-
ceptual ideas—that simplicity, and the
freedom to do unfamiliar things—maybe
that legacy had a strong after-effect on this
small community.”
The Fluxus group, which includes
honorary Reykjavík citizen and active
Reykjavík art presence Yoko Ono, has
taken a fluid, inter-disciplinary and anti-
commercial approach since the 1960s.
Icelandic art group SÚM, founded by i8
artists Hreinn Friðfinsson and Sigurður
Guðmundsson, took up these ideas, giving
rise to a new experimental attitude in Ice-
landic art. And this, in turn, helped lay the
foundation for the country’s art education
when the School of Arts and Crafts [now
operating under the LHÍ banner] opened
in 1975.
But this is just one intriguing and
formative fragment of the Icelandic arts’
identity, with a range of cultural and en-
vironmental factors discussed as possible
reasons for the country’s creative streak.
“There are plenty of other things that
influence us,” Börkur expands. “The envi-
ronment, the light! The plentiful light of
the summer, and the lack of it in the win-
ter. Ólafur Ellíasson said the mountains
in Iceland get their personality from the
way the light falls on them. Mountains are
pretty much the same everywhere, but the
clarity and low light here, the long shad-
ows and angles, they are unique.”
How about the cultural factors, the
personal space and relative creative free-
dom that being in Iceland seems to allow?
“I do think when Icelanders go abroad to
study they get a little shock,” Börkur says.
“There’s tradition, discipline, context, and
it’s a slap in the face, and hard work to get
to grips with that. Here in Iceland, there’s
a freedom to try whatever you want, and to
get away with it. And that’s okay. It’s okay
to try things and do things here.”
Whilst the lack of a rigid critical struc-
ture might breed a certain naiveté, it also
gives rise to the creative freedom and play-
fulness that lies at the core of contempo-
rary Icelandic culture. “Critical thinking,
the ability to take criticism, and to be criti-
cised—in general, we just don’t have a lot
of these qualities in Iceland,” Börkur says.
“But then, if we were more critical and
disciplined, maybe we would not be what
we are, maybe the creativity that is oozing
out of this place wouldn’t exist. You get a
slacker-ish element, but you also get fear-
lessness.”
This lack of self-consciousness is tan-
gible in many of the i8 artists’ work. Rag-
nar Kjartansson, for example, thrives on
the overlap between playful experimenta-
tion and provocation, moving towards the
“controlled chaos” of collaborative perfor-
mance in his recent output.
“I was with Ragnar and his friends
when they were setting up ‘World Light’
in Vienna, and their fearlessness was just
amazing,” Börkur says. “Nobody does that
crazy kind of stuff. Maybe that’s what we
are doing as a gallery. Maybe we are stu-
pid and fearless, too. There’s definitely that
sort of—‘I can do this, so why not?’”
A Cultural Filter
At the same time Börkur sees i8’s work as
quite traditional compared to the opera-
tions and methods of other art galleries.
“We’re not a crazy experimental gallery
compared to the things we see out in the
world,” he admits. “A lot of people see what
we are doing as really out there, but in the
wider context, we’re a pretty ordinary gal-
lery. We’re doing carefully thought-out
works that are aesthetically amazing and
conceptually interesting.”
And as well as sustaining the careers
of artists and enabling their ideas, perhaps
the role of the gallery is to use a critical eye
to become a trusted filter—a trend that
crosses over into how content curators
work across the spectrum of contempo-
rary culture.
“Much like a publisher or record label,
a gallery is the point where a critical com-
ponent comes into the process,” Börkur
says, before shaking off any uncomfort-
able expectations of the gallery’s role.
“But then, providing critical structure
isn’t something that we’re duty-bound to,
either. We run a gallery and curate and se-
lect and present. And when we show any-
thing, it’s a risk. Sometimes people come
and see a show and say, ‘oh that’s easy,
you’ll sell all of this’ and sometimes they
say, ‘how the hell will you sell any of this?
Who buys this?’”
So the root of i8’s programme remains
excitement for working with new art. “We
don’t necessarily show work because we
might sell it, which might be a dumb busi-
ness formula. But then, we’re still here,” he
says. “It’s hard to talk about the business,
it’s crude and crass, and we’re interested in
the art. But there are a few hundred square
metres here, and six people working here.
There’s no denying that we need to bal-
ance the books and sell the work to make it
all happen.”
By following their intuition and stay-
ing independent and opinionated, i8’s
risks continue to pay off. “Ultimately, we
are doing it because we are passionate
about the work,” smiles Börkur. “And it’s
a great job. I love being in this position.
There’s so much creativity and I feel very
fortunate to operate in that space.”
“Critical thinking, the ability to take criticism, and to
be criticised—in general, we just don’t have a lot of
these qualities in Iceland.”
“It’s very hard to know
what specific character-
istics I would ascribe to
Icelandic art.”
“Does it really matter
where people are from
at this point?”