Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.05.2014, Qupperneq 21

21 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 5 — 2014
Feature | Art
While art aficionados and those familiar
with the Icelandic art scene may have
their own ideas about work that is partic-
ularly “i8-like,” Börkur says the gallery’s
aesthetic is difficult to define. “We have
a diverse programme,” he says, although
he admits that there may be some quali-
ties that “i8 art” embodies, or rather,
does not. “There aren’t many painters.
There aren’t many figurative works.
There aren’t very many colourful works.
Looking at what we don’t do might nar-
row the definition.”
Börkur notes that i8 has never set out
to represent or define “Icelandic” art.
“It’s an Icelandic gallery only by defini-
tion because we are here,” he explains.
“The programme is not about finding or
putting together what represents Icelan-
dic art in the best way. I don’t think we’ve
ever thought of it that way. Roughly one
third of the artists are not from here and
more than half of the Icelandic artists
that we work with don’t live here, so it’s a
good healthy mix of people from all over.
That’s i8, that’s not Icelandic art.”
Indeed, the gallery is consummately
international, with its twenty repre-
sented artists hailing from, yes, Iceland,
but also from Brazil, Canada, Denmark,
Germany, and the US. “We have a Ca-
nadian artist that is based in London.
We showed her work in Miami. We sold
that work to MoMA in New York and
we’re from Iceland,” Börkur elaborates.
“That’s a pretty global example. And it’s
the same with Ignacio [Uriarte]. He’s a
Spanish guy born in Germany to Span-
ish parents, showing with us, and I sold
his work in Mexico,” he explains.
When asked why a Spanish art-
ist might want to be represented by an
Icelandic gallery, he’s quick to explain
that it’s not quite like that. “They don’t
want to be represented by an Icelandic
gallery. They want to be represented by
i8. I know it sounds extremely arrogant,
but we’re not ‘the Icelandic gallery,’” he
explains. “We’ve been around, we are in
the art fairs—which hundreds of galler-
ies are not—and people think, ‘that’s a
bloody good programme, I’d like to be
part of it, and the fact that it’s in an odd
place, that’s even more exciting.’”
Birgir Andrésson
Born: Westman Islands, Iceland (1955)
Died: Reykjavík, Iceland (2007)
Although Birgir Andrésson died when
he was only 52-years-old, he is credited
as being one of the most prolific and
influential Icelandic artists of his gen-
eration. The seeing child of visually-im-
paired parents, Birgir grew up in a home
for the blind and thus, it’s been said,
was “particularly attuned to the relation-
ship between language and perception.”
Many of his large-scale wall paintings
are comprised of only text, such as his
portrait series in which the descriptions
of missing persons are superimposed on
a large colour panel. The serious themes
of his work are often still playful. His
mocked-up Pantone colour series poke
fun at romanticised representations of
Icelandic nature, offering up a uniquely
Icelandic spectrum of colour: “dark ash-
en grey,” “inky grey,” “spotted grey,” and
“monotony of greyness.” His redrawn
postage stamps and flags knitted with
natural wool gently subvert nationalistic
ideals. Birgir’s work received recognition
during his lifetime and has continued to
do so since: just a year before his death,
the National Gallery of Iceland hosted
a major retrospective of his work, and
since then, his work has featured in
major exhibitions in Copenhagen, New
York, Reykjavík and Warsaw.
Eggert Pétursson
Born: Reykjavík, Iceland (1956)
Lives and works in: Reykjavík, Iceland
i8’s only represented painter, Eggert
Pétursson has dedicated his entire ar-
tistic output to capturing the surprising
diversity and colour of Icelandic flora
in incredible, minute detail. Much like
classic pointillist paintings, these richly
layered canvases take on an entirely dif-
ferent character depending on how close
one stands to them. As Eggert himself
has stated, “one can easily get lost in the
details.”
Egill Sæbjörnsson
Born: Reykjavík, Iceland (1973)
Lives and works in: Berlin, Germany
Elín Hansdóttir
Born: Reykjavík, Iceland (1980)
Lives and works in: Berlin, Germany
The youngest artist represented by i8,
Elín Hansdóttir is an artist who creates
landscapes and spaces integrating archi-
tectural and auditory elements, as well
as optical illusions. While on a Dar Al-
Ma’mun Residency grant in Morocco in
2011, she created the site-specific “Mud
Brick Spiral” installation, which incor-
porates full-length mirrors and tradi-
tional Berber mud bricks. Most recently,
she has shown her work in exhibitions
in Copenhagen and Berlin.
“A Gallery Is Nothing More
Than The Group Of Artists
Represented There”By Larissa KyzerPhotos provided by i8