Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.06.2019, Blaðsíða 15

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Lögberg-Heimskringla • 15. júní 2019 • 15
Before we had our
board meeting for our
Icelanders of Victoria
monthly meeting, we watched
a movie, A Force in Nature.
It was a biography about an
amazing sculptor and artist,
Jóhann Eyfells. The film starts
when he is 88. That’s not an
error. When he is 88. He is no
88-year-old sitting in a nursing
home.
Although Jóhann is
Icelandic, he has spent his adult
life in America. He began as a
successful boxer. He became
an architect and a university
professor. When we meet him,
he has moved from Florida to
Texas. He and his wife lived
in Florida. After she died, he
moved to Texas. He needed
the space and the buildings
because his sculptures are very
large, made of steel and stone.
He is constantly getting in and
out of equipment big enough,
powerful enough to move and
place both the steel and stone.
We watch him welding,
melting metal, moving
impossibly sized rocks. In one
scene, he is partly underneath
a massive stone that has
been raised up by his front-
end loader and some sturdy
belts. I must admit, I breathed
easier when he got out from
underneath.
There are photos of him
when he was young. Handsome
guy. He’s still a handsome guy.
Strong features. He comes
across as determined, focused,
certain of his vision. One of the
really interesting aspects of the
film is that every so often his
age appears on the screen: 88,
89, 90, all the way to 94. He
is still using his machines, still
moving his massive sculptures
as we watch him move from
88 to 94.
He is, of course, interviewed
and from time to time says
things like, “Stones give me my
message.” It is obvious from the
way that he power washes these
massive stones, runs his hands
over them, digs out debris with
his hands, caresses them, that
the stones do speak to him.
A touching part of the
film is his memories of his
wife, Kristín. She, too, was an
Icelandic artist. Her paintings
are large, unique, powerful.
We get to see Jóhann at a
retrospective of her work.
There is nothing maudlin about
his relationship with her but it is
clear how important she was to
him. Her sculptures, it is said in
the narrative, were influenced
by her memory of bones in the
landscape of Iceland.
Jóhann’s determination
can be seen in how he took
a sheep shed, dug out the
ground to create a large sunken
room – not all at once, but
a bit at a time – and turned
the building into a gallery.
A number of people, including
his son, are interviewed. Jóhann
himself says that he was more
focused on his work than his
family. He makes no apology
for it. One person interviewed
says, “can you imagine him not
doing this?”
What we see is the
culmination of a lifetime
obsession (along with Iceland’s
stunning landscapes). At one
point he says that he is not
known in Iceland, that he is an
outsider. It obviously bothers
him. However, it is not an
uncommon complaint. Many
Icelanders (including people
as famous as Halldór Laxness,
the Nobel Prize winner) have
been drawn to the dynamic
artistic life in America and the
tremendous opportunities and,
even when they have found
success in America, have not
found the same recognition
in their home country. In
America they live in this
huge country among a diverse
population. They are not part
of the daily lives of the artists
in their home country. They
have become other, the people
who have left.
He did become renowned
in his field. “He had a major
show entitled Power of
Passage at the Reykjavík
Museum of Art in Iceland. He
was also a major exhibitor at
the International Museum of
Art and Science (IMAS), and
represented Iceland at the
1993 Venice Biennale, the
United Nations, and at the
1972 Summer Olympics in
Munich, Germany.”
Therefore, it is satisfying
to hear at the end of the film
that one of his massive public
sculptures was bought by the
Icelandic government.
I found the film interesting,
I found Jóhann interesting, but
what will haunt me is the filming
of him lying on the ground
partially under a massive rock.
There was the physical danger.
Yet, it was more than that. It
seemed to capture Jóhann’s
life – his determination to risk
everything for his art.
A FORCE IN NATURE
Reviewed by W.D. Valgardson
Victoria, BC
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PHOTO BY HAYDEN DE M. YATES / VITRUVIUS CREATIONS
Jóhann Eyfells A Force in Nature