Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.01.2015, Blaðsíða 18

18
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 2015
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Einar Hákonarson, Farwell, 2011. Erró, Man with a Flower, 1985.
The Year In | Art
The Feminine Ways
I have a positive outlook on life,
and I think the hard questions
should be swept under the rug
until times are more favourable.
Criticism should always be con-
structive, but I prefer to avoid it
altogether, because of our diffi-
cult situation. Everyone is trying
to do their best, and this is the
time for a celebration of the finer
things in life. “The Disunion
Demon,” as the great writer
Guðmundur Andri Thors likes
to call the negativity and anger
that seem to have taken hold of
the nation, must be knocked out
for good, because he seizes every
opportunity to the push people
further apart, women and men.
The feminine and the masculine.
This is not a good idea!
1. The New Sincerity
The year started out with a
bomb: B.O.M.B. I am talking
about the nine-screen music vid-
eo installation ‘The Visitors’ by
Ragnar Kjartansson at Gallery
Kling and Bang. The wonder-
ful artwork caught the world’s
imagination, and it is safe to say
that its author not only com-
pletely defeated me (figuratively
speaking), but also conquered
the artworld (by storm!). Why
is the work so special? Well, for
one the music is gorgeous; com-
forting and melancholic at the
same time. Somewhere between
Damien Rice and Bon Iver, but
with that unique Icelandic sound
that we at the Reykjavík Grape-
vine love so much.
The visitors in this lyrical
piece are Ragnar himself and his
bandmates, each located in a sep-
arate room in the “dilapidated”
but elegant Rokeby Farm in up-
state New York. The bandmates
communicate with each other
telepathically, which enables
them to jam together with a very
resounding and harmonious out-
come. The musicians also seem
to communicate with the spirit
of the house itself and its own-
ers. The owners are good friends
with Ragnar and patrons of the
arts. They have decorated the
house in a beautiful Selby-like
way.
I admit it—I fell into a trance.
It was not unlike taking a nice
warm bath, as the artist himself
does in the most elegant scene,
where he sings the profound
verse: “Once again I fall into my
feminine ways.” Another scene
of beauty and simplicity is Kría
Brekkan playing the cello in a
nightgown. Absolutely stunning!
I was not the only one in a
trancelike state; the whole audi-
ence was lying on the floor like
dead bodies in the battlefield of
Big Bethel. I have only seen this
kind of behaviour among jaded
art viewers once before, and that
was at the Tate Modern, when
Ólafur Elíasson (another Ice-
lander!) showed his Big Sun. This
was before the credit crunch,
when the sun still shone on our
part of the world, like there was
no tomorrow. But now is the
time of the feminine, and Ragnar
Kjartansson delivers the moon in
all its originality. And he does it
with utmost sincerity, but at the
same time with top-notch irony.
And this perfect combo is what
makes Kjartansson’s work so
fresh. Ragnar is the king of the
New Sincerity.
2. Beautiful
Male Friendship
The odd couple Hreinn Frið-
finnsson and Kristinn E. Hraf-
nsson collaborated and paid
homage to one another at their
wonderful solo exhibitions at i8
gallery and Hverfisgallery, re-
spectively. Hreinn Friðfinnsson,
born in 1943, is an elegant man
and a frontrunner of Icelandic
conceptual art. His works, of-
ten referred to as lyrical and
sentimental, are made to evoke
strong emotions in the viewer,
and are successful at doing just
that. Kristinn E. Hrafnsson,
born in 1960, is on the other hand
a hard worker in the field of Ice-
landic post-conceptual art, with
a strong philosophical thread, a
ponderer of time, space, move-
ment, relativity and the Icelandic
language.
Hreinn Friðfinnsson’s ex-
hibition bore a hilarious title: ‘A
portrait of a Sculptor as a Sculp-
ture, with a Sculpture by the
Sculptor’. Kristinn’s show had
an equally rib-tickling name:
‘The Big Dipper’. The former
centres on Friðfinnsson’s videos
of the young sculptor, Friðfinns-
son’s protégé of many years,
performing everyday feminine
tasks and ingenuous actions in
various public and private places
throughout the beautiful city of
Reykjavík. In this series of vi-
gnettes, the stout sculptor tries
to reclaim the child within with
the help of instructions given by
the old master. It seems to have
had a beneficial effect on both of
them.
In return, Kristinn Hrafns-
son made an equally captivating
tribute to his hoarier in a photo
series titled ‘Nocturne on the
Last Quarter’, where the elder's
bald but very brainy head rep-
resents the moon. The moon of
course signifies the negative, the
passive and the wet. Once again,
the artists hopelessly fall into
their feminine ways.
3. The Women
“The Pearl Necklace” is a brand
new, all-female sculpture park.
It is located under the Japanese
cherry trees (commemorating
the victims of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki) at Hljómskálagarður
Park. The sculpture park is “in
memory of the foremothers of
Icelandic sculpture.” The mostly
minuscule works of these pio-
neer women have been renamed
after book titles of the nineteenth
century novelist Jón Thoroddsen
elder, the first novelist in Iceland.
Notably, “Lad and Lass” by Þorb-
jörg Pálsdóttir, “Son” by her sis-
ter Ólöf Pálsdóttir, and “Man and
Woman” by Tove.
The name of the park has
angered feminists with its bla-
tant reference to pornography,
but I believe the officials were
actually thinking of women’s
passion for glamour and expen-
sive jewellery, so that criticism
seems a little far-fetched. My
personal favourite sculpture is
Nína Sæmundsson’s “The Little
Mermaid,” located in the cherry
pond. The work is based on H.C.
Andersen’s fairytale, but the
story behind Nína’s sculpture is
also a fairytale in the making.
Whether it will have a happy
ending remains to be seen.
The work was originally
placed in the pond in the year
1959. On New Year’s Day of 1960,
the statue was blown into smith-
ereens by avant-garde artists
and thugs, and was soon forgot-
ten. Forty years later, Smáralind,
Iceland’s biggest shopping mall,
opened its doors on the outskirts
of Reykjavik. The fact that the
mall resembles a giant phallus
when viewed from above makes
the story more intriguing. “The
Little Mermaid” by Nína was
the centrepiece of the mall’s dé-
cor, and made many children
happy until the amusement park
(where the sculpture was locat-
ed in front of an old-fashioned
French carousel) was closed
down few years ago.
If it wasn’t for "The Pearl
Necklace" and the generous do-
nation of the mall’s owners, the
sculpture would most likely have
been forgotten again. City of-
ficials held their breath on New
Years Day, anxiously waiting
to find whether the sculpture
would survive the festivities. It
did, and a well-known theatre
director was quoted saying that
“The Little Mermaid is still alive
and gulls have been busy slowly
dressing her in a beautiful wed-
ding gown.”
Maybe it’s just me, or the
name of the park, or the Japa-
nese trees surrounding the pond,
but last thing the bird droppings
remind me of is a wedding gown.
Words & artwork by Ásmundur Ásmundsson, Fine Artist
At the beginning of a new year, it is absolutely necessary to take an hon-
est inventory of the preceding one’s victories and mishaps in the field of the
fine arts. The Reykjavík Grapevine is not the right platform for an honest
and moral artistic introspection, as this publication is for tourists. When one
stops to ask oneself a question (publicly), I believe in asking nicely.
Icelandic Fine Art in the year 2014
I was not the only one
in a trancelike state;
the whole audience
was lying on the floor
like dead bodies in the
battlefield of Big Bethel.