Reykjavík Grapevine


Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.07.2017, Blaðsíða 42

Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.07.2017, Blaðsíða 42
Art Find today's events in Iceland! Download our free listings app - APPENING on the Apple and Android stores The Remote And The Vital Connecting the California desert with the Icelandic wilderness. Words: Parker Yamasaki Photo: Art Bicnick The California desert is a land based in contradiction. A place where the feeling of impending apocalypse mingles closely with hopeful uto- pia. Where alien encounters are as common as daily prayer, and often intersect one another. Where “off- the-grid” commu- nities share borders with a military base. It is a place of tangled human existence and messily woven magic. Brian Scott Camp- bell lives in Joshua Tree, California, one of the more ac- cessible sites of this human paradox. Ap- propriately, he is in- spired by the “quirky and psychological.” He drops artists like Nick Payne, Irena Ju- rek and Austin Eng- lish in conversation, and is “generally always seeking something strange or surprising— something that feels urgent and ex- uberant.” It just so happens Brian graduated with a BFA from Columbus College of Art & Design and an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts. He travelled around ex- hibiting in collective and solo shows. He rented a small studio in Ohio while visiting his family and fell in love with an Icelandic woman stranded in Cincinnati. The two of them leapt to the West Coast in 2013, setting up shop (and studio) in Santa Bar- bara, California, and eventually moved to the desert because he “always admired the idea of living in the desert, and the timing just so hap- pened to be right.” Absurd and inspiring as the de- sert can be, its summer highs reach 45° C, regularly, and can be a bit sti- fling to the creative process. Brian and his partner have been splitting their time between Iceland and the States, and are thinking about mak- ing Iceland their “spot for the sum- mer.” Access granted “I’ve always had an interest in Ice- land, and the art that is made in this part of the world,” says Brian. “My aim is really just to expand my knowledge of art that is happening here, and to somehow take part in it.” Step by step, he’s making his way into Reykjavík’s prolific art scene. This June he stepped through the doors of the Harbinger Project Space at Freyjugata 1 for the open- ing night of a month-long show— which he curated. The show is called ‘Zing Zam Blunder’, a name inspired by the Captain Beefheart song title “Zig Zag Wanderer,” and elaborated on by a poem that Chris Hutchin- son wrote for the exhibition. Bri- an has hand-selected works by 25 artists from Iceland and the USA. The drawings were brought to- gether by Brian’s personal taste: “I simply wanted to see them next to each other on the wall,” he says, ex- plaining that the works are united by “a somewhat unified ‘outsider’ aesthetic… a clunky awkwardness, and ham-fisted tentativeness that I relate to in my own work.” Crossed communication Harbinger was conceived as a place to present foreign and local work equally, and has, from its beginning, worked hard to foster the communi- ty created by unlikely combinations. “I’ve lived in much larger cities where there’s a significant popu- lation of artists, but I really have a special love for art made in remark- able places,” Brian says. “There’s not much that the deserts of California have in common with Iceland, but there’s certainly a remoteness and vitality that they share.” ‘Zing Zam Blunder’ will be on display at Harbinger until July 23. Take a look for a peek inside this cu- rator’s mind—celebrating art that’s created whether because of or in spite of difficult conditions, and the community that is formed in the re- mote and the vital. gpv.is/art Share this + Archives “There’s not much that the deserts of Cali- fornia have in common with Iceland, but there’s a re- moteness and vitality that they share.” VISIT KÓPAVOGUR CULTURE HOUSES AND EXPERIENCE Salurinn Concert Hall Náttúrufræðistofa Kópavogs Natural History Museum of Kópavogur Bókasafn Kópavogs Kópavogur Public Library Sundlaug Kópavogs Kopavogur Thermal Pool Kópavogskirkja Kopavogur Church Hamraborg 4–6 Kópavogur Bus 1, 2 & 4 MANY FACES OF NATURE & MORE THE IN, WITH AND BETWEEN US & N át tú ru fr æ ði st of a Kó p av o g s N at ur al H is to ry M us eu m o f Kó p av o g ur G er ða rs af n  Kó p av o g ur A rt M us eu m i8 Gallery Tryggvagata 16 101 Reykjavík info@i8.is t: +354 551 3666 www.i8.is Stúdíó Ólafur Elíasson open Tuesday to Sunday 12 - 6pm and until 9 pm on Thursdays. MARSHALLHÚSIÐ - Grandagarður 20 Open 11:30-22:00 saegreif inn. is Geirsgata 8 • 101 Reykjavík • Tel. 553 1500 • seabaron8@gmail.com An absolute must-try! Saegreifinn restaurant (Sea Baron) is like none other in Iceland; a world famous lobster soup and a diverse fish selection.
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