Reykjavík Grapevine - Dec 2021, Page 20

On The Ver!e Of A
Breakdown
The delicate, unsettlin! works of Gu"n# Rósa
In!imarsdóttir
Words: Andie Sophia Fontaine
Photos: Hildur Inga Björnsdóttir & Andie Sophia Fontaine
Layers of translucent white paper,
cut into vaguely cloud-like shapes,
lend different shades of cream to
light grey due to the layers them-
selves. In impossibly tiny, hand-
written letters, the word “PANIC”
is written in several places. Dif-
ferent coloured paper cards, with
mysterious rectangular holes
cut in them, are lined up in rows
within a simple white frame. On
these cards are typed phrases from
what looks like a manual type-
writer, conveying such messages
as “take the blame if ever possible”
and “alltaf !æg, gó" og stillt” (“al-
ways nice, good and still”). Brown
wrapping paper is sewn over top of
swirly burgundy and cream wall-
paper, revealed to us only because
the words “WAKING UP WITH AN
OVERDOSE OF SELFPITY” have
been cut into the brown
paper.
These are just some
of the many unsettling,
delicate works of Gu"n#
Rósa Ingimarsdóttir,
being show n now at
Kjarvalssta"ir at an ex-
hibition called “opus
- oups”, referring to the
Latin word for “work”
and the French word for
“whoops”, respectively.
Two decades in
the making
Gu"n# Rósa has been
making art for over two
decades, and this ret-
rospective reflects her
growth as an artist. Many
of these works make use
of simple paper and ink,
which in her hands are
transformed into a frag-
ile beauty. On one white
space, measuring about one square
metre, first glance only shows a
series of curiously bent black hori-
zontal lines. On closer inspection,
these lines are actually handwrit-
ten numbers, leaving the viewer to
wonder if this is some encryption
code or pure randomness. Another
work features long, thin strips of
different kinds of paper, some of
them cut from books, arranged in a
row and sewn into place along the
top in tiny stitches.
But as with any artist interested
in exploration and whose career
stretches back this far, there are
other media at work here, too.
There are, for example, abstract
sculptures made from knitted
wool, a nod to her Icelandic heri-
tage (Gu"n# lives and works in Bel-
gium), and a series of thin glass
pipettes suspended from thin
coloured strings, held in place by
equally thin pins.
No matter the medium, Gu"n#
Rósa deftly conveys feelings of
anxiety, fragility; a person on the
verge of breaking down completely
in the most beautiful way.
Multiple media
One of the more intriguing works
in this exhibition isn’t even visual
media. There are two purely au-
dio works. In one, the attendant
is invited to put on a pair of head-
phones and listen to a woman’s
voice review a series of numbered,
anonymous letters. The letters are
not recited; rather, the narrator
summarises their contents. There
is an intimacy to this piece, as what
is left unsaid in the details of these
letters that invites the imagination
to consider their writers. In anoth-
er audio work, ‘Time and Water’,
a child reads texts in languages
that are clearly not their own. It
is at times difficult to understand
what is being said beyond suppos-
ing that we are probably hearing
Icelandic or French. The effect is
such that even if you happen to un-
derstand these languages, they are
rendered near incomprehensible
to the listener.
There are also two vid-
eo works—one of a pair of
hands cutting apart wool
with a pair of scissors,
and another showing an
infant’s hands grasping
at a nipple—convey the
same delicateness that
can be found throughout
this exhibition.
A nyone at tend i ng
‘opus - oups’ is likely to
come away from the ex-
perience with the same
unsettling feeling of a
friend sharing an inti-
mate secret, but also with
the same sense of honour
of being made privy to
that secret.
Opus - oups will be shown
at Kjarvalssta!ir until
January 16th
Art
DIETER ROTH
9 December 2021 - 29 January 2022
@i8gallery
Open daily
10h00–17h00
artmuseum.is
#reykjavikartmuseum
Kjarvalsstaðir
Flókagata 24
105 Reykjavík
+354 411 6400
Guðný Rósa Ingimarsdóttir opus-
oups
02.10.2021–16.01.2022
Gu"n# Rósa Ingimarsdóttir