Reykjavík Grapevine - okt. 2020, Blaðsíða 20

The Meanin! Of
Everyday Objects
Gu!laug Mía Ey"órsdóttir blurs the line between
functionality and decoration
Words: Iona Rangeley-Wilson Photo: Art Bicnick
Exhibition
Check out 'Milli Hluta’ at the
Mosfellsbær Library.
The neat stacks of the Mosfells-
bær Library don’t stop abruptly
at the door of the exhibition that
lies hidden behind it; rather, they
seem to continue on inside. The
first piece, hung from crisp white
walls, looks rather like a stack of
shelves, or perhaps some sort of
play shelf. After all, it’s made of
fabric—hardly something the li-
brarians can arrange their books
on. Beyond this, a metal frame
forms the shape of a chair. From
a distance, it appears three di-
mensional, but a closer inspec-
tion shows it flattened against the
wall, as unfit for function as the
“shelves” that came before it. To-
gether, these objects form the en-
trance to Gu!laug Mía Ey"órsdót-
tir’s new exhibition ‘Milli Hluta.’
Leave it at that
“It’s a reference to an Icelandic
saying that we have,” Gu!laug
says, explaining the origins of the
exhibition’s name. “‘Liggur á milli
hluta,’ which means ‘lies between
objects.’ It’s a bit like, ‘leave it at
that’, so it’s a play with words. I
could say that the meaning of the
exhibition itself is lying between
the objects.”
While this might sound a bit
like the English phrase “to read
between the lines”, there’s no true
direct translation of the Icelandic
saying.
“It makes more sense in Icelan-
dic,” Gu!laug laughs. “When you
read between the lines the mean-
ing is still there, but with ‘liggur á
milli hluta’ you cast the meaning
aside. You just leave it at that, you
don’t read into it. Is there a mean-
ing or simply none at all?”
Familiar yet unfamiliar
Like the title, the exhibition re-
peatedly teases the viewer with
meaning and then with its ab-
sence. Each object is familiar yet
unfamiliar: almost recognisable
as an everyday object, but never
quite. Is that a cabinet? Well, sort
of, but certainly not one you could
keep anything in.
Moreover, there are
no titles or placards
to help the viewer
out. Instead, each
piece stands anon-
y mously, spaced
evenly around the
white room, silent-
ly begging ques-
tions but answer-
ing none.
“You construct the meaning
with your presence in the space,”
Gu!laug answers. “My starting
point is the forms that surround
us everyday: a texture, a form, a
material. And I take those forms
and I reshuffle them—try out dif-
ferent colours or scales. You could
come here and see what looks like
a cabinet and then what looks like
a shelf and you decide that it’s an
office space. You develop your own
meaning out of the familiar ob-
jects that surround you.”
Figure it out!
Though Gu!laug takes her in-
spiration from everyday objects,
she concedes that her ideas often
start more abstractly: with an at-
mosphere or space. This particu-
lar exhibition started with the
idea of a library, the very one she’s
exhibiting in. Gu!laug’s early idea
suggested a series of objects—a
shelf, drawers—and once placed
in the exhibition space, those ob-
jects would construct their own
new meaning in relation to one
another. One viewer, she explains,
might look at them and see a li-
brary; another, a bedroom. That’s
why Gu!laug doesn’t, or perhaps
can’t, explain where each piece of
inspiration came from, even as
she walks around the exhibition:
it’s more fun for the viewer to have
to figure it out for themselves.
Fundamentally, what fasci-
nates Gu!laug, she emphasises,
is forms. She quotes the Danish
art historian Rudolf Broby-Jo-
hansen: “Things live longer than
people and forms
live much longer
than the objects
themselves.” It’s a
sentiment that ’s
easy to view when
confronted w ith
her work.
Gu!laug’s forms
are at once familiar
yet bewilderingly
unfamiliar, repre-
sentative of everyday objects, but
never fully taking those objects’
shapes. In ‘Milli Hluta,’ she aban-
dons the objects’ limitations and
retreats to the platonic form: form
that retains beauty, but exists
without function.
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“The meaning of
the exhibition
itself is lying
between the
objects.”
Just an everday object gazing into the lens
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101 Reykjavík
info@i8.is
t: +354 551 3666
www.i8.is
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