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Oddny Eir Ævarsdóttir is an Icelandic writer and Parisian philosopher. She has collaborated with artists in Reykjavik, Paris and New York on a number of art projects and installations, as well as art book events and interviews. Here she talks about the Invasionistas’ exhibition, which took place at Kling & Bang Gallery as part of the Sequences: Real Time Art Festival with Atlanta-Reykjavik based artist and editor Unnar Örn J. Audarson and K& B directors Sirra Sigrún Sigurdardóttir and Erling T.V. Klingenberg. |
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Oddny Eir Ævarsdóttir is an Icelandic writer and Parisian philosopher. She has collaborated with artists in Reykjavik, Paris and New York on a number of art projects and installations, as well as art book events and interviews. Here she talks about the Invasionistas’ exhibition, which took place at Kling & Bang Gallery as part of the Sequences: Real Time Art Festival with Atlanta-Reykjavik based artist and editor Unnar Örn J. Audarson and K& B directors Sirra Sigrún Sigurdardóttir and Erling T.V. Klingenberg.
Oddny Eir Ævarsdóttir: When I came here last Friday, there were some problems regarding the National Culture House. Please tell me about them.
Sirra Sigrún Sigurdardóttir: The Invasionistas artists went there to shoot a statue of Jesus by this old Danish-Icelandic sculptor named Thorvaldsen. It is a kind of holy object for some people. One of the actions involved filming a member disrobing and licking the toes of the statue, kissing it in a special manner. Not pornographic or shocking.
Erling T.V. Klingenberg: The director of the National Culture House called me afterwards. In the end, the video (shown at Kling & Bang) was not the problem. On film, you see the security guys as they see the artists drop their clothes and then start kissing and licking. The director should have stopped them earlier. It was his mistake and it made the institution look bad. That’s why they were worried. But it was also a question of definition. They had told them to film only in the corridor, so we finished by arguing over the definition of limits of the corridor!
OEA: There were also some other tensions before that, if I remember correctly. However, your policy is to trust artists and avoid censorship.
SSS: The gallery would not censor the exhibition, so the director would have had to file a legal claim to stop us from showing the video.
ETVK: The headline written by journalist Doctor Gunni was funny: “Cockroach Pornography in Kling and Bang.” But, I was really misquoted there and it is difficult to explain all of this. In the article, there is talk about Icelandic pride being challenged in one of the videos taken at Geyser. Of course, there are certain parts of our culture and heritage that I respect and don’t want, in the name of someone’s art, to fuck up. And, I admit that I was scared when the artist (Theordore Fivel) threw this green pigment into the Geyser and everything turned this color. I was shocked and kind of angry. What if the pigment doesn’t go away? I told him originally not to touch this, our sacred little hot spring, the only one left active. Does it go away?
SSS: But that is part of the invasion, to attack sacred things.
OEA: They were collaborating with you, so what kind of invasion was it?
SSS: A lot of things they did on their own. I didn’t know they were going to do this at Geyser and, when we saw the moss and the lava around it become all fluorescent green, we just crossed our fingers!
ETVK: Somewhere in the text that followed the show, the artists said they were examining the idea of invasion and what happens in an invasion. Then the only thing that seemed to happen was this guy (Michael Portney) catching the attention of the media for fucking a cockroach. It made me think about certain issues regarding censorship and artistic freedom and it put me in the position of asking myself when to say “stop” to artists, if there is this “stop.” I discussed that with Christian, the head of the Center for Icelandic Art. If it is a criminal act, like rape, or against the law, where would we draw the line? But, for this woman at the National Culture House, it was the respect of the law of the institution that mattered more than her moral judgment.
OEA: Now, at the same time, you are all artists, gallerists, citizens and parents. And you, Sirra, asked your daughter and her friends to play in one of the Invasionistas videos. In the newspaper, they mentioned this, and even though it’s suggested that the children are not involved in the cockroach act, you can mix it up when you read it. You described for me how nice it was on the one hand to work with the children and then how, on the other hand, it was uncanny to get your daughter at school after the breaking news of the cockroach porn. But, why were the children involved?
SSS: The idea of getting the children to participate comes from old telegrams that one of the artists, Michal, found in the library. Those are telegrams that the mayor sent during WWII, giving orders to evacuate children in case of bombings. Children were to be taken out of Reykjavik. They were really formal directions. The scene depicts the children with their backpacks and favorite things. Artists were pushing them out like a fire drill. The children were really good actors. It’s normal to get kids to play in a movie even though what it’s about is very bad. In the edited video, this segment was followed by the artist fucking a giant cockroach, and so the media made these inaccurate connections between the two projects.
OEA: What about this cockroach?
SSS: For 40 years, Iceland was a strategic place for the American military. That has shifted, but they did leave behind a cockroach that was found, which is not common in Iceland. It became a part of Iceland that was not Iceland and they had this creature living there.
ETVK: There were real worries about the cockroach, and it was in the military contract with the Icelandic government that the American army would have to provide pest control. Cockroaches don’t have borders, so how were they going to do this? We wrote a letter to all the parents and asked their permission to do the evacuation. And then I read this in the newspaper about kids evacuating Reykjavik, and then about the roach.
Unnar Örn J. Audarson: Where did they get their ideas and their intention of playing with those icons and breaking down this part of the national identity?
SSS: You can write a whole thesis about foreign artists coming here; what they are doing here. There have been many foreigners from many countries coming to our gallery and many of them ask for the same things. Can you get us a boat on a glacier and cast something in ice? Like in the 60-minute film Skipholt that we made with John Bock, there were scenes with those exact things. And, in the large project with Christoph Schlingensief, he attacked several cultural and politically sensitive places like Thingvellir, Geyser and Parliament, all in the form of performances and films.
ETVK: Then there was the “Sheep Plug” project with Jason Rhoades and Paul McCarthy. That was quite different. They asked us to find an Icelandic material to use to produce these large butt plug sculptures. We chose the old recipe for soap, which is sheep fat mixed with this kind of lye chemical. They also put up this huge replica of Macy´s on the Eastern coast of Iceland. They used the sheep fat and organized a parade down the main shopping street. Gelitin did likewise by not falling into the exotic Icelandic trap. Even though they used Icelandic moss in their installation, they traveled a lot and got perhaps more inspired from the trips than in using the landscape or its natural resources directly. They played more with words, like phony pony, muffin puffin, etc., and, during their vernissage, tried to get an erection through mind power. But maybe it is most interesting, either you use the landscape or other things in the culture here is how foreign eyes see them and use them.
Sirra: What we have been seeing for some time here in this gallery is that artists are coming to Iceland not only to make artt but experiencing Iceland and it sort of feels like being raped. There is something unhealthy about it. It’s an infection in the art scene here. Even though you’re getting first-rate artists to work here, they are getting infected with us and the inverse.
Erling: I was talking to Nina (a member of K & B and the Sequences Program Director) yesterday and we asked ourselves if Invasionistas would do the same confrontational acts in New York. Michael Jurewicz said they wanted to take over 84th street. But would you go into the UN and do exactly the same? Then we were comparing this to our own trip, when the Klink and Bank went to the Berlin Art Fair. There is this freedom when you are away, on holiday, traveling.
Unnar: The thing in Berlin was also called INVASION, BerlInvasion. It’s the same kind of idea on a different level and scale.
Erling: In the beginning you were not thinking of “invasion” but just taking over this small space we got and tried to make the most of it. It was more about this huge artist´s base; KlinK and BanK, going to this small space inside this large commercial art fair – a culturally different space.
Sirra: There was this lounge and bar and fence in the middle of the room. On one side there were the sponsors, lawyers, filthy rich people, and the VIP. If the organizers knew what they were getting from Iceland they would not have given us that many VIP cards. You had all these people dressed like Metallica – like normal Icelandic artists – sitting with all the normal VIPs, who were “suppose to be there.” You could actually see a real fear in their eyes. The people working there were nervous and wanted to get rid of us. And of course everything went crazy. This band called the 9/11’s started playing with no clothes on (from the waste up) and blocked the exit. The people in the VIP room couldn’t get out and were stuck with us…
Unnar: The Invasionistas bring their kind of costumes with them, hoods and fringes, form a nation, and dressed like a gang or army. They don’t call this invasion, but Invasionistas. To call something invasion is very brutal. To call it the BerlInvasion was brutal, especially at this time with invasions into places like Iraq…
Erling: They were called Invasionists until the last minute before the opening. But the “istas” refers to South American guerilla groups…
Sirra: Then you realize they were Americans but from elsewhere, like Hungary, Corsica…
Oddny: What is the difference between the two invasions, in attitude, between you in Berlin and the New Yorkers here?
Erling: Awareness. Their idea was to invade and check out whatever invading means. Our invasion was just participating in this art fair, bringing chaos and organized anarchy into Berlin. We were innocent in the sense of doing just what we normally do at K & B, moving it to Germany. Here they were coming from New York, with their different ideas, invading Thingvellir, where the parliament was established, and Geyser and this kind of going nuts in this sense of freedom in a foreign country.
Oddny: You as gallerists and maybe Icelanders in general are somehow used to this kind of invasion. It’s not radical in the sense of fucking anything up. There’s this one little article in the newspaper, but that’s about it so far in the way of reaction.
Sirra: Some of them realized soon that Icelanders don’t really give a fuck if they are invaded or not. They just keep doing their own stuff.
Erling: But they invaded my limitation with Geyser. I could really feel it.
Sirra: It’s so easy to come here and pick on these places and then you just go away from it.
Oddny: But that’s why we are here tonight, because we felt that something touched us and we don’t understand what it was. And suddenly you see a pattern in the way foreign artists come here and act.
Erling: Sometimes there are the derivative requests. But what about what we feed them, with geyser… They ask us before. What are we going to show the foreigner even though we try to take them to other places and show them other things?
Unnar: People have an idea of Iceland before coming here. Then you either establish that idea or deconstruct it. I think it’s interesting to talk about colonialism too. The idea of invasion is very common to all of us. We are very used to it as a nation and we are open to it, in a way.
Oddny: What kind of invasion is it then if the culture is so open to it? We need the foreign influence but not a foreign overtake or violence but sometimes it is maybe difficult to invite one without the other. Like opening up your home as good hosts. One moment when somebody does something and you know according to your principle you are not suppose to be angry, since you’re open. But even if you wont judge them it can irritate or offend you, like if your guest is tearing pages out of your books, knifing your artworks, or scratching your favorite disc. What is the meaning of the New York invasion if there is almost no reaction to it, other than a little irritation on the skin? On the other hand we all felt that there was something new and something very interesting and beautiful in their acts and in this exhibition.
Sirra: I like to look at the details of their acts. There were some really beautiful things. They had all these different projects going on, one was acting as a prostitute the whole time and others recruiting like an army. They were just getting people off the streets, including two Mormons from America who were trying to get people into their thinking. They both spoke Icelandic and were really trying, which is not normal for people who come to Iceland. They were like, “we must learn the language.” This room we are sitting in… they painted this room in half an hour because they got six people off the streets to help, and a rapping bass player came in and played while they painted. Nice and small details. They managed to touch people even though they were not visible in the show. They were really nice people. For me that is a symbol of the universe working.
Oddný: And Kling & Bang is still going strong?
Sirra: Yes, and it continues to be beautiful to be able to offer to foreign artists that come to the gallery an open space. One of the artists, David Adamo, wanted to make this dark matter parade. A large part of the world is made of it, and we can’t see or sense it. The idea was this big empty space, and the artist asked for police cars, escorts, and closed streets. They first rejected it and said it was a waste of tax money. After a lot of persistence on the artists’ part, in the end the police agreed to do it. It was a lot of work to coax the police into a conceptual art piece. What was funny is that we felt that they were capable of having this artistic view, and they proved so.
Erling: They allowed themselves to get into speculations about the artistic value of the parade! The question of the legal matter or financial matter was of no importance compared to that! And they had to protect nothing.
Sirra: Because this is an artist run space and because Iceland is small you can reach out perhaps easily. It’s kind of a basic rule that when people come here to work we never say no. When there is an idea in the air then we try to make it happen. It comes from experience… It freaks out people who are used to working with big institutions and accustomed to long processes. We just say yes, we’ll try to make that happen. That’s a different atmosphere from what they are used to. Maybe that is why they act that way and try to push the sore spots, like children or teenagers. It’s kind of our ambition not to put any limits on them.
