The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2004, Blaðsíða 10

52
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 59 #2
have decided, “If painting was heroic, (he)
would be low key. If painters worked in
studios, (he) would make his art every-
where. If paintings were big, he would
work small. If a single painting was a com-
mitment that demanded time and high seri-
ousness, he would make a promiscuous
number of works quickly, almost indiffer-
ently. If paintings hung in art galleries, he
would insert his sometimes surreptitiously
into library books and card catalogues.”
(Enright 2000)
Since 1981, Eyland’s work has been
marked by one constant -3x5” library
card format. In 1997, he began an ongoing
project titled “File Card Works Hidden in
Books” at the Raymond Fogelman Library
of the New School for Social Research in
New York City. He placed over a thou-
sand drawings in books in the library, and
plans to hide a thousand a year. The pre-
cursor for this installation goes all the way
back to his student days at NASCAD,
when Eyland began cutting the reproduc-
tions in H. H. Arnason’s History of
Modern Art into the size of index cards and
making conceptual art by drilling holes
into them and inserting them into the rele-
vant places in the library’s card catalogue.
Visitors to Margaret Laurence House, in
Neepawa, Manitoba, and the E. P. Taylor
research library at the Art Gallery of
Ontario began to find Eyland’s drawings in
books. His hope was “to give people an art
experience when they were least expecting
it.” (Gopnik 1998) In all of these cases,
when the unexpected visual information
Atkins&Pearce
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surfaced, people were left with the choice
of what to do with it - take the cards home,
leave them as they found them, or replace
them in a new spot. I particularly enjoy
Robert McGee’s image of the cards
“...replicat(ing) like some computer virus,
infecting and re-invigorating texts so we
can once again read them anew.” (McGee
1998) Since e-mail has become ever-pre-
sent, he has placed his e-mail address on the
back of each card, not necessarily expecting
a response. It is interesting to imagine the
reactions of the recipients as they come
upon them unexpectedly.
Eyland - painter, conceptual artist,
curator, writer, critic, assistant professor,
Director of Gallery One One One at the
University of Manitoba’s School of Art,
voracious reader, cultural activist and rene-
gade - says that he may possibly have an
Icelandic connection, but he has never
bothered to research it. His most memo-
rable connection with Icelanders was limit-
ed to seeing Bjork and her artist husband,
Matthew Barney, at Gavin Brown’s, an
artist’s bar in New York. In keeping with
his idea of Icelanders as traveling people
with a well-funded art system, and his
desire to assist with bringing some
Icelandic artists here, the enterprising
Eyland may well offer them an art show -
and they may well come. Bjork would
probably find it interesting to see
Islendingar in a new environment. Eyland
suggests that any contact with Icelanders is
unusual - but he has no contact with kids,
plants, dogs or cats either.
As a curator, he has done freelance
work and a stint at Daltech, the Technical
University of Nova Scotia School of
Architecture (1985-1994). He is on the
board of Plug In Institute of
Contemporary Art in Winnipeg, and says
it “accounts for most of the controversy in
my life.” He has found that one of the chal-
lenges is that you can’t predict what will be
controversial and will ‘press someone’s
buttons’, and what will not. Anything to
do with homosexuality has proven to be a
hot topic, and the “serial killer art” of John
Wayne Gacey was so controversial that it
wasn’t shown. Eyland suggests that “unof-
ficial art, especially art that is officially