Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.05.2015, Blaðsíða 26

26 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 5 — 2014ART
An exploration of Icelandic visual
heritage, 'Points of View' brings together
widely diverse objects from six major
cultural institutions, with the fresh eye
and sensibility of a contemporary art
installation. The wonderful result is an
impeccably arranged treasure trove
waiting to be discovered in the nooks
and crannies of one of the country’s
most beautiful houses. It is the grand-
scale equivalent of a rummage through
your grandmother’s attic (if in addition
to family photos and embroidered
pillows your grandmother also collected
contemporary art, stuffed falcons,
religious statues, illuminated manuscripts,
plant specimens, and diagrams of various
beard styles through the ages).
Blissfully free of academic
explanations and contextualising,
the exhibition instead loosely groups
its pieces according to Icelanders’
perspectives of themselves and their
world, establishing a refreshingly
human orientation in which an object’s
significance is determined in equal parts
through the creative expression of its
maker and the experience of the viewer.
(There is one indisputable national
treasure also on display. I won’t give it
away here, but it is worth the trip in and
of itself.)
'Points of View' is beautifully and
intelligently conceived, but it is also full
of heart and humour. On the day after
the opening, the Culture House is filled
with at least two generations of adults
laughing and reminiscing while children
play in the many irresistable discovery
areas. The exhibition’s tone seems to
come directly from its curator, Markús
Þór Andrésson, an energetic young
contemporary art specialist with a dress
sense circa 1900. Trained at Bard College,
Markús’s curatorial credits include the
Sequences Art Festival (2013); 'Without
Destination' at the Reykjavík Art Museum
(2011); and (with Dorothée Kirch) Ragnar
Kjartansson’s 'The End' at the Venice
Biennale (2009).
Markús walks me through the
exhibition and tells me more about his
fascinating, if unlikely, collaboration
with the National Museum, the Natural
History Museum, the National Art
Gallery, the National Archive, the National
and University Library, and the Árni
Magnússon Institute.
There are no signs, no descriptions,
and no explanations…
Just the basics. If there is a title or a
year or a self-description, or if the artist
is known, we have that. I thought it was
very important that people be able to
experience a show like this—just visually—
to make connections between the pieces
without knowing too much about them.
There’s a simple sentence a curator
I admire once said: “You don’t go to a
concert to learn about music, it’s just to
enjoy the music.” The same goes for visual
experience. You don’t go to learn about it,
you just want to enjoy it.
Wasn’t that a controversial
approach?
Yes, it was very much debated. People
want to educate people. That’s basically
what many of these institutions are
obliged to do. But there are many ways
to do that.
I was campaigning for a kind of
active experience, to have to compare
and contrast and look around. Not just to
be told. It’s not a new thing anywhere else,
but here in Iceland you don’t necessarily
invite people to discover things on their
own. We usually just mediate an exhibition
that’s been done in an institution and then
present it. But the result is that people feel
like the institution is speaking to them
from above, that they just have to listen
and learn.
It’s a totally different experience
to claim ownership, to know that this
is your heritage and you know it as well
as anybody else. The people who made
these works of art were not necessarily
specialists in their fields. They are maybe
amateurs, or just trying to express
themselves. We’re trying to focus on this
visual language that everyone should be
able to engage with. For those who want
go deeper into things, there are also the
options of walking through with an audio
guide, reading the catalogue, or making
use of one of the study rooms.
I’m really intrigued how you got away
with it! I would think the museums
had very specific ideas about the
importance of certain pieces…
There were a lot of discussions. Every
institution has some sort of thoughts
about their pieces like that. Of course,
there are pieces here that are important
canonised pieces, but in some cases, I
had to persuade my collaborators in the
committee that my personal interest was
also of value, even if what I found curious
was insignificant in the context of the
institution. Like with the manuscripts. The
law books are their least favorite objects
because there are so many of them. It’s
always more or less the same text so
there’s nothing new in the 300 law books
they have, but the one Edda they have
from that period is immensely significant.
But it’s just text. It’s not fun to look at. In
their canon it might be the most important
piece, but I was not interested in it in this
particular context. I just wanted the law
books because they are pretty. And they
thought, “But these are
not important! Why
don’t you want the good
stuff?”
You were trained as
a contemporary art
curator…
Art since the 1960s
was the focus of the
programme.
Was your curatorial
approach inspired
by any particular
movement in
contemporary art?
There’s this tendency
(like in the last
Biennale and the last
Documenta), where
within the traditional
art context you would
stumble across
some curious visual
items made by scientists, researchers,
outsider artists, and the like. It made the
viewing experience all the more rich and
enjoyable. It’s also very close to many
artists’ practices. Here, you have Unnur
Örn’s shows. He’s an artist who creates his
book works, installations, and exhibitions
by bringing found objects together.
Through the process of just grouping
or categorising them?
Yes, exactly. And there is a series of
exhibitions that the artist Einar Garibaldi
has curated. He did a show years ago that
I was always really impressed by called
'Flying over Hekla' where he looked at
the idea of Hekla as
a mountain and as a
cultural concept within
different historical
contexts. He brought
together all sorts of
things like research
material and documents
and geographical field
research and art. He
also did a show about
the picture of Þingvellir—
how Þingvellir has been
created as an image
through art rather than
as a natural experience
or a landscape in itself.
So, I’ve always been very
fascinated by this sort of
approach.
Did anything surprise
you in the process
of putting the show
together?
It was surprising to me to see how rich the
story was. I was very much afraid that we
might end up with a show with just a lot
of church pieces and some manuscripts.
I was ignorant of what we had, like I
guess most people are. So, that was a big
surprise for me, the range of interesting
stuff that we just don’t see displayed.
Somebody told me at the opening
that they were so grateful, that they hadn’t
realized we had an art history in Iceland.
People feel like it’s their own and are
realizing something about themselves.
That’s a beautiful reaction. The literature
scene had that experience years ago
when everyone just thought about the
Eddas and the Sagas, and then, Laxness.
Just those two pillars with nothing in
between. But in the 1950s and 60s, they
discovered that 17th, 18th, and 19th
century literature is interesting. There
are no peaks—no sagas or Laxness—but
there is a really rich unbroken thread
going through. I guess it’s this picture we
need to introduce in our visual culture as
well.
Final thoughts?
Maybe by putting things together the
way we are doing in this exhibition, it
opens up a new way of researching
these things; coming to some kind of a
conclusion about them, or knowing more
about them. But it’s also the case in art
as in language. If you lose the language
but still have books in that language it's
just scribbling that you can’t access in
any way. It has to be kept alive somehow.
I have the same feeling toward these
objects. You have to keep them alive and
you do that only by thinking about them
and putting them in a new context. The
artist had a certain intention. With the
church pieces you know the intention
was obviously to hang them in a church
to serve a religious purpose, but then they
become pieces of art in a gallery and are
looked upon as such. So, although the
intention may have already been broken
in most of these pieces, there is still some
kind of respect you can pay towards them
by trying to keep them alive.
The Culture House (Safnahúsið) may have just been re-
stored to its original 1906 name, but it has reopened to new
life and purpose with the inspired and inspiring exhibition
'Points of View'.
Words
Lani Yamamoto
Photo
Matthew Eisman
A New Look At
Iceland's Visual
Heritage
Markús Þór Andrésson on curating
'Points of View' at the Culture House
Hverfisgata 15,
101 Reykjavík facebook.com/safnahusid
Tuesday – Sunday:
10:00 - 17:00
Points Of View
Info
Built in 1908, The Culture House
was designed by Danish
architect Johannes Magdahl
Nielsen at the request of
Iceland’s first prime minister,
Hannes Hafstein. Since then,
the building has been home to
several important institutions,
including the National Library,
the National Archives of
Iceland, the National Museum
of Iceland and the Museum
of Natural History, before
becoming the Culture House.
In 2013, the National Museum
took over management, and
last month, the space opened
anew with an exhibition of
Icelandic art.
INTER
VIEW