Reykjavík Grapevine - Mar 2021, Page 13

third album released in 1973 by
Iggy and his band, The Stooges, a
record that was hugely influential
on punk and in the lyrics of which
Iggy famously claimed the title
"world's forgotten boy". It was Kurt
Cobain’s favourite album—a love
shared by Birgir.
“It didn't start with the title, of
course, but the title came soon and
it hit the tone,” he reflects. “Power
is something I'd say that we all
relate to when we think of Erró’s
work, and the rawness is maybe
the extra spice to it.”
Juxtaposed with Erró
The work of the fifteen chosen art-
ists in Raw Power is interspersed
with that of Erró himself, ar-
ranged in ways that encourage the
viewer to make connections and
draw threads between pieces.
The presence of Erró’s ‘The
Tomato Soup’ in the exhibition
makes a clear connection to argu-
ably the world’s most famous piece
of pop art—Warhol’s 'Campbell's
Soup Cans’—and is a reminder of
Erró’s role in that scene. Erró pro-
duced his own soupy opus the year
after his partner-in-appropriation
Warhol put his cans on display,
cheekily re-appropriating an ap-
propriation. Erró draws attention
to a piece created and currently
displayed on the other side of the
Atlantic, serving up a reminder of
his lack of concern with concepts
of artistic nationality.
%órdís A!alsteinsdóttir ’s
‘Shrimp Cocktail’ is hung next
to Erró’s ‘The Tomato Soup’. The
works are connected in an uncom-
fortably visceral way through the
naked, pink shellfish of %órdís’
work echoing the exposed human
intestines laid bare by Erró.
Seafood is one of Iceland’s cul-
tural touchstones and, in addition
to %órdís’ shrimps, fishy motifs
are repeated around the room.
Pieces by Helgi %orgils Fri!jóns-
son and Arngrímur Sigur!sson—
depicting blue lobsters and cepha-
lophilia, respectively—both echo
the cycle of human and piscine
death portrayed in Erró’s painting
‘Green Mother’.
Icelandic diaspora
Reflecting the idea of an Icelan-
dic creative diaspora, a couple of
decades ago Icelandic artist Sara
Riel went to Germany. ‘Maus-
frau’—one of her contributions to
‘Raw Power’—represents her time
dodging the polizei as a tagger in
Berlin. She now divides her time
between Reykjavík and Athens,
but even during her Berlin period
Sara’s connection to her homeland
remained strong.
“I don't ever not want to be an
Icelandic artist,” Sara explains as
she sits in the Greek sunshine.
“That's why I moved back to Ice-
land from Berlin. I wanted to write
this into my own cultural history.”
When asked about Erró’s influ-
ence, Sara says that the genera-
tional gap between the master and
the younger artists creates more
of a remove than any geographical
situation.
“I think Erró has influenced us
all,” she suggests, “even though we
don't want to admit it. He's like a
grandfather to us, which makes
him something of a distant char-
acter.”
Lukas Bury, another ‘Raw Pow-
er’ artist, is a new Icelander with
Polish-German roots. His self-
portrait ‘Lithuania, My Father-
land!’ sees him dressed in a tradi-
tional Icelandic sweater, surveying
an Icelandic landscape.
The title, etched into the paint-
ing in Polish, is from a 19th cen-
tury poem by Adam Mickiewicz.
The poem touches on the notion
of national borders—and identi-
ties—shifting due to politics and
conflict. Mickiewicz considered
himself to be Lithuanian, but from
a modern perspective he would be
Belarusian.
“But then Mickiewicz wrote in
Polish,” Lukas expands, “and he
is a national poet of all of those
countries. So already his artistic
identity is pretty complex.”
To connect Lukas’ work with
an overtly political aspect of Erró,
Birgis places it next to ‘United
Army’, one of Erró’s appropria-
tions of Maoist propaganda.
“This is about creating, or re-
writing, history through paint-
ing,” Lukas says of the connection
between the works. “Mao is visit-
ing Venice; something that never
happened. But it is something that
could have happened if world his-
tory had gone a different way.”
Erró—the world’s
acclaimed artist
Iggy Pop may lay claim to being
“the world’s forgotten boy,” but
through ‘Raw Power’ Erró rein-
forces his legacy as Iceland’s most
globally-recognisable artist. Hav-
ing said that, his blazing the trail
for an Icelandic creative diaspora
renders such definitions redun-
dant. Erró’s energy, power and
influence extend beyond descrip-
tions of nationality to exist univer-
sally.
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One corner of the exhibition space full of raw power
13The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 03— 2021
Lukas (le"), Birgir (right) and Erró (behind)