Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.07.2017, Qupperneq 42

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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
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“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.”
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Sundlaug Kópavogs Kopavogur Thermal Pool
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Hamraborg 4–6
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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.