Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.03.2017, Side 24

Klingenberg, the svelte, gray-haired,
vape-huffing Icelander who first ini-
tiated Kling & Bang. “We had a space
between two booths, but we brought
forty artists and some bands, and
somehow squeezed everyone in to-
gether. What I remember most about
it was just trying to stay alive and get
through it… we had some loud music
performances, and we were almost
asked to leave after the first night.” He
pauses, and smiles. “Someone pulled
some strings, and we got to stay.”
A pack of wolves
The project was born in the pre-boom,
pre-crash Reykjavík of 2003. “I’d been
living in Copenhagen for a few years,”
says Erling. “I’d wanted to start a gallery
there—it was at a time when you could
still get a building for cheap. There’d
been lots of meetings, but no action... it
was going too slowly for me. Then I came
back to Iceland, and there were really no
artist-run galleries left. Nothing was
happening for younger artists.”
Then a space on Laugavegur came
to his attention, initially for studio
use. “It was such a perfect space for a
gallery,” says Erling. “It reignited that
old idea. I asked if we could find a stu-
dio somewhere else, and use it as a gal-
lery, then called up some people who
were doing interesting things at that
time. And so it began.”
One of the ten multi-tasking artists
he contacted was Daníel Björnsson.
Daníel was living in Berlin, shortly af-
ter graduating, when his phone rang
unexpectedly. “I got a call from Erling,”
he recalls. “We were acquaintances—
the Icelandic art scene is quite tight,
so everyone knows each other. He told
me that he and Gurra Benónýsdóttir
had acquired a house at Laugavegur
23. They wanted to start a collective,
and make a platform for young artists.
The only artist-run space, at Hlem-
mur, was closing down, and NÝLÓ was
between houses. There was nothing. It
was bleak.”
“What Erling did was quite bril-
liant,” he continues, “in that he didn’t
ask all his closest friends to be a part of
it. He asked people he’d met and been
interested with working with over the
years, until there were ten.”
That ten has evolved over the years,
but five of the original members re-
main on the board alongside five new-
er recruits, including Ingibjörg, who
joined in 2010. “You never really quit,
though,” says Daníel. “The older ones
are always popping up. Some art insti-
tutions have strict procedures on do-
ing things. But Kling & Bang is more
like a pack of wolves.”
Into space
Kling & Bang’s first location was at
Laugavegur 23, on the first floor above
where the Macland store is today. “It
was kind of at the beginning of the
boom,” remembers Daníel. “There was
a tension in the air—contractors were
buying up all the houses downtown
and talking about tearing it all out to
build strip malls. Laugavegur 23 was
one of those houses. The contractor
rented it out to us cheap on the condi-
tion we kept it nice.”
Kling & Bang’s arrival was well-
received by the art scene of the city.
“We built up the walls, and Börkur
Jónsson had an exhibition ready,” says
Daníel. “We just did it. People—espe-
cially those who are entwined in the
art scene—are usually really grateful
when someone does this in Iceland. It’s
important, this collectivising. NÝLÓ
has a collection about all the past
artist-run spaces in Iceland. It’s been
happening throughout the last cen-
tury, but it’s usually something that’s
forgotten.”
From the start, Kling & Bang’s fo-
cus wasn’t on showing work by mem-
bers of the collective, but on curating,
facilitating and promoting exhibi-
tions by other artists. “We all have an
interest in broadening dialogues, and
building things as a unit,” explains
Daníel. “That’s also why we started
executing shows by foreign artists. It
seems to be possible to make things
happen quickly here in Iceland, that
couldn’t happen as easily elsewhere.
People are closer together here, and
they’re willing to just do something.”
The collective Erling assembled
also had myriad connections to other
scenes, through their individual ca-
reers and extended social circles, and
through studying abroad. “Everyone
in this ragtag collective was com-
ing back to Iceland from somewhere
else,” says Daníel. “That was the tra-
ditional way, back them—to do your
foundation course in Iceland, then
to do your degree abroad. That gave
us the ability to show and mobilise
other artists.”
To Erling, it was a mixture of in-
stinct and serendipity. “It was all
quite spontaneous,” he explains.
“I asked people who were doing
something interesting, and many
of them had been studying in dif-
ferent places, so when we all came
together, we had a good, wide net-
work. That became a strength—
t hese br idges to ot her places.”
All the way to the BanK
A year after opening, Kling & Bang
were approached by Landsbankinn,
who had an empty building available
for use by Hlemmur in Reykjavík 101.
Unbeknownst to the gallery, Lands-
bankinn had been keeping an eye on
their progress.
“They said they’d been watching us
for a year,” says Daníel. “They didn’t
really know us, but they’d done a sur-
vey, asking people who could pull off
a project like this.
And apparently we
came out top. So
they offered us the
house—not really
any money, but the
building, and to
pay the real-estate
taxes. We had it
for nine months,
to do whatever we
wanted.”
What resulted
was an explosive coming-together of
people in various creative disciplines.
Kling & Bang placed ads in the news-
papers, and selected 140 artists from
500 applicants to use the space however
they saw fit. The building was dubbed
KlinK & BanK, and quickly became
a labyrinthine hub for of all sorts of
happenings, openings, collaborations,
parties, seminars and blow-out events.
Erling described the project for a
2007 Grapevine interview: “What hap-
pened in KlinK & BanK was that people
from different fields like music, visual
art and dance got to know each other,
and it influenced their artistic work.
One could see all kinds of art in the
same space. People started working
together on projects, and it acted as an
inspiration to see what other people
were working on. The house created a
conversation between different types
of art, and opened up new types of col-
laboration. That inspiration and com-
munication continued to develop after
people had moved out.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by top Ice-
landic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. His
f i r s t e v e r s o l o
show took place
in Kling & Bang’s
Laugavegur loca-
tion, and he was
one of the artists
who took up resi-
dence in the KlinK
& BanK building.
“That period had
a profound effect
on me,” says Rag-
nar. “I wouldn’t
be doing what I’m doing if I hadn’t
had those months working there. It
completely changed my whole world-
view. It felt so natural, and unforced.
It was interesting to not just mingle
with other artists in the bar, but in
your working space. I’d be practising
with my band in one room, and then
doing visual art next door. It leaked
into the DNA of the scene, and it be-
came the model of how I work today.”
Butt plug factory
After eighteen months, the KlinK &
BanK project came to an end, and the
building was eventually torn down.
“We really got shamed for it lat-
er, after IceSave happened,” laughs
Daníel. “We got annihilated for the
collaboration. But if I could go back
“KlinK & BanK
had a profound effect
on me. It leaked into
the DNA of the scene,
and became the model
of how I work today.”
- Ragnar Kjartansson
24 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 03 — 2017