Reykjavík Grapevine - Aug 2023, Page 15

15 Culture
The
Grapevine’s
Top Picks
RVK PRIDE PARADE
August 12
Downtown Reykjavík
Strap on those walking boots, slap a
rainbow sticker on your ass and hit
the streets on Saturday for the best
party of the year. It’s time for the
Pride Parade! Truly covering every
colour of the rainbow — and moon-
bow! — the march gathers together
and celebrates the beautiful, spar-
kling and rebellious world of queer-
ness. From high energy pop-hits
and dancers to political defiance,
leather and lace, it’s the place where
we are all free to be you and me.
Come out and let the world know! RX
SEIGLA CHAMBER MUSIC
FESTIVAL
August 11 – 13
Harpa
It may seem like the total opposite
of the Pride vibe, but anyone close
to classical music knows that it’s as
gay as a picnic basket. So if march-
ing through the streets to Lady Gaga
isn’t your bag, head to Harpa and
delight yourself with the finest an-
nual celebration of chamber music.
This year’s meticulously curated
program focuses on storytelling
through music, with folk and fairy
tales, and exploring how poetry and
literature influence music. Don your
finest 18th century drag and feast
your ears. RX
CULTURE NIGHT
August 19
all over Reykjavík
The light nights have left, the blue
nights are dwindling and soon the
darkness shall fall. But first, we par-
ty! The annual Culture Night (“Men-
ningarnótt”) is actually a whole day
and night of fun and festivities all
over the city, including open pro-
grams in many museums, bouncy
castles and games for kids, free
outdoor shows, public art and waf-
fles. Oh, so many waffles! You can
do a waffle tour of the city! It all ends
with a bang, a kickass (albeit slight-
ly gauche) fireworks show. It might
mean the summer’s over, but the
party’s just begun. RX
WORDS Rex Beckett
IMAGE Supplied by The Nordic
House
When the ‘80s rolled in, the
queer community could never have
predicted that over the next decade,
the HIV/AIDS epidemic would tear
through and decimate their popula-
tion. As the death toll rose – largely
ignored powers-that-be – it was joy,
beauty and love that held the com-
munity together.
In 1983, queer Norwegian visual art-
ists Kjetil Berge and Gøran Ohldieck
arrived in Iceland to display a pho-
tography exhibition at the Nordic
House showing the fervent jubilance
of their friends and community.
When the exhibition opened, man-
agement of the institution recoiled
at their images of unabashed queer
exuberance, telling the artists to
remove the “distasteful” works from
the show. Kjetil and Gøran, both in
their early 20s at the time, told them
to get fucked, packed their show
and left. The exhibition was up for
just two days.
Forty years later — also the 40th
anniversary of the scientific isolation
of HIV — the show rises again at the
Nordic House.
“In 2019, I curated an exhibition at
the City Center Library about art in
relation to Samtökin ’78,” says Ynda
Eldborg, curator of the exhibition
now called GRÍMUR (“Masks”). “I
was going through the Reykjavík
municipal archives and that’s when
I came across this exhibition. I had
never heard of it. I was speechless”
She describes the revelation as “an
absolute Nirvana moment.” She
contacted the artists, asking them to
take part in the 2019 exhibition, and
they gladly obliged.
“I was a bit pissed off but I was not
really angry,” she says about learning
how the exhibition was shut down. “I
saw it as a victory, as a contribution
to queer history. I thought, ‘I’m just
gonna grab this concept and move
forward,’ rather than wasting time on
being angry.”
Ynda’s mission to bring queer art to
the forefront in Iceland has been a
long and fraught journey, much like
the ongoing fight for queer rights.
After living in the UK for 15 years
and completing a PhD in art history,
she returned to Iceland in 2014 and
began trying to curate exhibitions in
all the major art institutions.
“I introduced programs to all the
museums,” she says. “I either got
a ‘No’ or they would say ‘There’s a
board meeting next week and we
will decide then,’ and then nothing
happened. So I just gave up.”
Rather, she forged ahead on her own
path, determined to fulfil her mis-
sion. In 2022, the Living Art Museum
(Nýló) opened their doors to her and
co-curator Viktoría Guðnadóttir to
put up their show On Display: Queer
Above Others.
From there, the ball started rolling
and she struck a deal with Kjetil and
Gøran that when finished with the
exhibition at Nýló, they would be her
next show. She contacted the Nor-
dic House’s director, Sabina Wes-
terholm last autumn, who welcomed
her with open arms. The exhibition
opened August 10, in the prime of
RVK Pride week, and runs until the
end of September.
“This exhibition is also a dialogue
with the ‘80s, but it also is a dia-
logue to what is happening here
today in terms of trans people,
particularly transwomen,” she says,
emphasising the importance of the
exhibition’s timing. “They are facing
the same hate as gay men in the
‘80s. It feels like we keep on repeat-
ing.”
“We’re trying to create an intimate
space or conversation between the
viewer and the pictures,” she says,
walking through the exhibition of
A4 sized portraits full of intimacy,
attitude and sensuality. “This is such
an important part of the queer art
history of Iceland. You see the joy.
Friends just fooling around and hav-
ing a good time.”
The show is a profoundly poignant
celebration of resilience, solidarity
and survival. Both gay as in happy
and queer as in fuck you.
Culture Behind The Masks
The exhibition GRÍMUR uncovers queer history