STARA - 14.11.2015, Blaðsíða 36

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Autumn in
Akureyri
The works were chosen from sug-
gestions submitted by 90 artists who
felt they had a place at the exhibi-
tion. A committee of five people
was chosen to oversee the selection.
One of its members was the exhibi-
tion’s curator Hlynur Hallsson. That
arrangement seems to indicate that
his role as a curator was involved
first and foremost in managing the
committee’s work and organizing
the installation of the pieces in the
exhibition. Hlynur was also the di-
rector at the Akureyri Art Museum
and as such, shaping the museum’s
exhibition strategy.
The course he chose to follow with
Autumn was meant to provide
insight into the visual art scene in
the North. The approach caught my
attention since here was an arrange-
ment that is not customary in mu-
seums. Museums generally do not
request submissions from artists and
then build a whole exhibition based
on those submissions, even though
this method is used in other areas.
The purpose of the call for submis-
sions was undoubtedly to reach
artists outside the curator’s radar. At
the same time though, the museum
sent out the message that it was
open to all artists from the North.
An act displaying nobility while also
eliciting questions.
Real nobleness would mean that
the museum would exhibit all the
submitted works, which we know it
cannot do due to its size and role.
However, the callout seems to have
raised hopes and so it is under-
standable that not everyone agreed
with the outcome. Among them was
a small group of artists who decided
to open their own exhibition in
Deiglan named Salon de Refusés or
The Exhibition of the Rejected. I do
not claim that this exhibition was
superior or more interesting than
Autumn, because it was not. Rather,
this reaction is a reminder that it
is neither the role nor obligation of
Akureyri Art Museum to exhibit
works by every artist in the North,
and consequently the museum
should not imply that everyone has
an equal chance of exhibiting there.
The role of Akureyri Art Museum,
within the context of its operation,
should be the same as of any other
museum. That means it should do
what other exhibition spaces in
Listagil in Akureyri cannot do; it
should select, put into perspective,
and emphasize uniqueness using the
knowledge and overview afforded to
a museum of its kind.
Misgivings about the methodol-
ogy of the selection process for the
Autumn exhibition does not mean
that calling for submissions was an
altogether bad idea. The exhibition
was fresh and several works would
likely have never made it there by
any other means. The idea itself to
host an annual autumn exhibition
which provides insight into what
is brewing in visual art in the area
is solid and no reason to dissuade
the museum to host such a harvest
festival again. But the frame of the
exhibition needs to be more defined
and the execution in sync with the
demands made to modern muse-
ums.
At the exhibition Haust (Autumn) at the Akureyri Art Mu-
seum, around three dozen works by over 30 artists from the
north of Iceland were on display. The exhibition was lively,
the works diverse, the subject matters varied, and many of
them memorable.
Dr. Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir