Reykjavík Grapevine - Mar 2023, Page 12

12 The Reykjavík
Grapevine 2/23
Best before:
March 2, 2023
A lot of people head into a new year
with grand plans for a fresh start; to
do things differently. But a lot of the
time that’s little more than talk.
That’s not the case for artist
Sigurður Ámundason. His year really
started with a bang, with his work
exhibited on 450 digital billboards
across the capital area. Everywhere
you looked, there were Sigurður’s
signature graphic illustrations. The
artist (and longtime friend of the
Grapevine) was chosen out of 40
applicants to showcase his art through
the Auglýsingahlé (Commercial Break)
project — a collaboration of Billboard,
Gallery Y and the Reykjavík Art
Museum.
City-wide exhibition?
Check
Sigurður’s work “Réttermi” replaced
the usual carousel of advertisements
bombarding the sightlines of Reyk-
javík residents with his illustrations,
consisting of “egoistic meaning-
less brand names that think highly
of themselves, including strings of
numbers and Icelandic letters in arbi-
trary rows.”
As if a city-wide digital exhibition
wasn’t enough, Sigurður also wrote,
directed and acted in the play “Hið
ósagða” (The Unsaid) at Tjarnarbíó in
December and January, while hosting
another exhibition in Ásmundarsalur
with his fellow artist Gunnar Jónsson
(it runs until Feb. 12, so catch it if you
can). I sat down with Sigurður for a
hot chocolate on a cold evening to talk
about his eventful year (so far).
“The billboard exhibition was
crazy,” he says. “Maybe almost too
much, actually! I was very proud
and humble, I kind of felt like an old
person.” With that, he breaks out in
a bout of charismatic laughter that
makes it impossible not to laugh
along.
“When the whole city is your
gallery, that’s just magnificent, I’m
still getting my head around it, to be
honest,” he continued. “It definitely
has a good effect on you as an artist.
But you have to be humble — the
minute you become arrogant, you
become unremarkable, in my opinion.
Everytime I meet a person that I
admire and I find out he or she has
a big head, I am so disappointed.
It’s like going to a fancy restaurant
and it smells like shit!” The laughter
resumes.
Sold-out theatre
performance? Check
It must take a bit of work for Sigurður
to remain humble these days. “Hið
ósagða” got rave reviews in December,
with all three performances selling
out. That prompted the decision to
add one January performance to the
run to quench the public’s thirst for
more.
The idea for the performance had
been brewing in Sigurður’s head for
a while. In fact, it started as a shorter
piece of performance art before
expanding into an hour-long play.
“It’s kind of about my philosophy to
make fun of as many types of people
as I can,” he said of the play’s content,
which touches on passive aggression
and the unsaid, human connection
and varied types of violence. “There is
dishonesty in all kinds of people and
violence can take many forms, it can
be very subtle. You can, for example,
know somebody and decide to humili-
ate them by pushing all of his or her
buttons, knowing their weaknesses.
It’s very mean, but it happens,” says
Sigurður, the laughter giving way to a
more serious demeanour.
According to Sigurður, the play is
based on his own experiences, cover-
ing his temptations, weaknesses and
some of the things he really dislikes,
like passive aggression — behaviour
he decided a long time ago to never
participate in.
Sigurður describes himself as being
a big time movie nerd and says he’s
long wanted to get into cinema. In
that vein, one aspect of “Hið ósagða” is
inspired by a scene in one of his favou-
rite movies, “Mulholland Drive,” in
which a singer falls on stage during a
dramatic performance and stops sing-
ing, but the song goes on like nothing
happened. That inspired Sigurður
to pre-record all the dialogue for the
performance and have the actors lip
syncing on stage — a quirk that caught
the attention of theatre-goers.
“I like this method and I wanted to
see it. And if you want to see it, you
can assume that some other people
also want to,” he rationalises. “But if
not, at least I have shared something I
wanted to do.”
“You have to step out of your
comfort zone, out of the box from
time to time,” he professes. “It was a
lot of work; it took me countless days
and nights to edit what was recorded
beforehand, but it was fun. I love
theatre and I want to have the dialogue
perfect and by doing it this way, the
actors can also focus on their posture
and body language.”
Novel and short film? In
progress
Though Sigurður wasn’t sure when
he was younger what he wanted to do
when he grew up, he was interested in
movies and visited his aunt in Holly-
wood as a teenager seeking inspira-
tion. His path took a turn away from
the cinematic after receiving advice to
direct his efforts elsewhere.
“I went to see a healer at some
point, who told me to put this movie
thing on pause and focus on fine art.
I registered for Myndlistarskóli Reyk-
javíkur and later Listaháskóli Íslands
and did what she told me,” Sigurður
says with a glint in his eyes.
Drawing came very naturally, and
Sigurður tells me he drew a lot in his
childhood and teenage years. Painting
was more difficult, though he was
mesmerised once introduced to clas-
sic paintings. But his teachers told
him that everything had already been
painted, so he decided to make draw-
ings based on the classic paintings he
loved.
“Drawing is my base, I will always
be a visual artist,” he said. “It’s similar
to an Icelander who goes for three
months to the south of France, but he
always comes back. When I’m bored of
one medium, I use something else, like
a chef that uses different ingredients.”
“What is on my mind is human
connections — what is uncomfort-
able and difficult to talk about? Both
with the billboard exhibition and the
play, the communication is unclear,
it’s vague, and that’s the purpose. In
my visual art I try to express everyday
things in a drawing that is not at all
‘everyday.’”
It’s clear, listening to Sigurður
speak, that he enjoys juggling many
projects at once — did I mention he’s
currently writing a novel and plans to
shoot a short film?
“This novel I’m writing is the most
difficult project I have faced other
than parenthood,” he says. “If I would
have published it two years ago, it
would have been despicable. It would
still be despicable if I would publish
it today, but I still want to publish it
soon.”
“I want to do a lot of things — if I
get bored with one project, I can have
an affair with another one. I want
to be on the edge, in the dark, in the
mud. I want to make a play that is half
movie, half play; to make a drawing
that is also a painting. I like to do
something not knowing what happens
next.”
Whatever Sigurður does next, he’s
already achieved more in January than
most will tick off their to-do list all
year.
Words:
Aron Ingi
Guðmundsson
Images:
Art Bicnick
Sigurður’s Very Busy Year
— And It’s Only February
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