Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.09.2015, Síða 6

6
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 2011
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Reykjavík’s City Hall
currently hosts a large
exhibit celebrating the
hundred year anniver-
sary of women's right to
vote in Iceland. This exhibit includes a
feminist art show, ‘Kynleikar’ (“Gender-
play”) by fourteen young artists, curated
by a downtown gallery called Ekkisens.
Some of the works of art were put on dis-
play in the staff cafeteria, where they put
a few people off their lunch.
The bourgeoisie cannot stomach
the power of revolutionary art!
In this particular case, the art given
pride of place where people went to have
lunch included video art which cut to-
gether scenes from pornography with
non-pornographic material. Few people
want to mix sausage munching with eat-
ing lunch. Though, to be exact, the porn
scenes in question depicted people get-
ting sperm on their face.
If you want a picture of the fu-
ture, imagine a dick ejaculating on
a human face—forever.
One might contend, that one point the
artists might have wanted to make is that
humans are confronted with pornog-
raphy in their daily lives, whether they
like it or not. And the people working in
City Hall did not like being confronted
with pornography. So they turned off the
video installations. If that had been the
end of the story, it would not have been
news. However, since this was City Hall,
it became a political issue.
Politicians and pornography. Now
there's a thought to put me off my
lunch.
The media storm began properly when
Sveinbjörg Birna Sveinbjörnsdóttir,
who sits on City Council for the populist
Progressive Party, took to Facebook to
complain that the offensive art exhibit
had cost the City of Reykjavík fifty-two
thousand Euros. In fact, the total cost for
the city was around two hundred Euros.
She quickly removed that Facebook post.
I was going to say something
about “egg on face” but suddenly
that's not very appetizing.
What she perhaps should have been
shocked by is that fourteen artists can
exhibit in City Hall without getting
paid. It is odd to have to say that the City
of Reykjavík should not be exploiting
young artists. To add insult to injury, the
city has not done anything to safeguard
the works of art. According to a report
in the newspaper DV, there is suspicion
that the most controversial work has
been sabotaged.
Hopefully not by... you know. By...
uh... you know. Spooge.
The DVD containing the video piece
was scratched beyond repair. Thank-
fully, other copies exist. However, parts
of another less controversial work were
torn down. The word “píka” (that means
“vagina”) was written on pieces of paper
and plastered on the wall around the en-
trance of an elevator and inside it. Some
of the papers were torn down. Despite
the obvious need, the remaining works
will not get more protection, according
to Halldór Auðar Svansson, city council-
lor for the Pirate Party and member of
the majority coalition.
Don't be such a downer. Why
focus on the two damaged works
of art when twelve remain
unsabotaged?
To add insult to the insult that was origi-
nally added to the injury, City Hall has
no staff to take care of the art it is exhib-
iting. The artists have said on Facebook
that they have had to go in person to City
Hall to turn the works of art on and off.
Which could only be excused if no one
in City Hall knows how to use a DVD
player.
That might explain how the DVD
got damaged.
In an interview with DV, visual artist Ás-
dís Spanó said: “[In Iceland] it is usually
not assumed that visual artists get paid
for the exhibition of their works.” She is
working with The Association of Visual
Artists in Iceland to change that. That
no one in City Hall gave any thought to
paying these fourteen young artists for
their work is sadly not an exception. It
is one thing when a non-profit arts orga-
nization or a small museum asks people
to work for free, but another when a city
with a budget of almost six hundred mil-
lion Euros does it.
If those fourteen young artists
don't just quit art now and enrol
in a stockbroking school, they
should be given medals.
Medals made out of bundles of cash,
preferably. If it is any consolation, and it
probably is not, they have joined a pan-
theon of great artists whose art has been
vandalized, from Rothko to Da Vinci to
Picasso. Their works were repaired, of
course. Which is what you do when an
artwork in your care is damaged. Which
City Hall has, as of this writing, not an-
nounced it will do. I guess the artists
should feel lucky their works have not
been turned into urinals, like reverse
Duchamps.
So What's This “Controversial”
Art In City Hall
I Keep Hearing About?
Art | Pearl clutching
I C E L A N D 4 D U M M I E S
Words by Kári Tulinius
Illustration by Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
6
Th Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 15 — 2015
Things have taken a turn for the
better where Iceland’s acceptance of
Syrian refugees is concerned. The
Icelandic government voted in fa-
vour of offering 2 billion ISK in assis-
tance to go towards welcoming the
refugees brought to Iceland, assist-
ing refugee relief efforts overseas,
and speeding up the asylum seeker
application process. At the same
time, at least 100 Syrian refugees will
be welcomed to Iceland, probably
this December, and that may be the
first group of many more. Akureyri
has already been slated as the first
town to welcome these refugees. Not
the 1,600 or even the 500 refugees
we’ve seen proposed, but it’s a start!
In less heartening news, copy-
right holder organisations and Ice-
land’s major ISPs have reached an
agreement to block their customers’
access to the Icelandic-language
torrent site Deildu.net, and The
Pirate Bay. The Pirate Party has
come out strong against the move,
with MP Ásta Guðrún Helgadóttir
warning that it “set[s] a precedent for
blocking access to websites without
taking the matter to trial first and
proving [the torrent sites] have hurt
anyone.” As things such as proxy
servers and other torrent sites re-
main in existance, it is uncertain
how effective the firewall will be.
There’ve been a lot of predictions
that upwards of 1.5 million tourists
will visit Iceland next year, which is
like five times the population of the
country(!). In response, Minister for
the Environment Sigrún Magnús-
dóttir has confirmed that the gov-
ernment is considering arrival tolls,
increased parking fees, and other
tolls in order to help maintain sites of
natural wonder facing this much foot
traffic. Given how unsuccessful the
notorious Nature Pass idea was, we
may just have to go ahead and pave
over Geysir now.
By Paul Fontaine
NEWS
IN
BRIEF
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