It�s Happening Now! A quick look at 100 years of the Icelandic art scene
By JBK Ransu
Egill Sæbj�rnsson (Egill Saebjoernsson). You Take all My Time. 2002 – 2003. Mixed media or; Music, sound, double video projection, stage, translucent screen, paint, performance. Dundee Contemporary Arts / Visual Research Centre / Cooper Galleries
In the beginning…
Though many of the Icelandic scripts were decorated by craftsmen centuries ago we can safely say that Icelandic visual art does not really begin until the year 1900 with the exhibition of landscape paintings by Thorarinn B. Thorl�ksson, the first Icelander ever to exhibit works in his homeland. For the next 40 years or so there was an average of 3-4 exhibitions a year, mostly in the capital, Reykjav�k, and dominated by landscape painting.
It was not until after WW2 when a new era began in Icelandic visual art. Turning towards post war abstraction and exhibiting with the Cobra group, Svavar Gudnasson became the first Icelandic artist who was actually in tune with international movements of his time. Many Icelandic artists turned towards abstraction, but were still inspired by landscape. Abstract art, mainly painting, then dominated the Icelandic art scene until the late 60�s, when yet a new �herslur emerged and a group of artists formed the minimal/conceptual movement S�M. Conceptual art overthrew all artistic values known to the public since early modernist movements, including Dada and Surrealism, which had been neglected by the Icelandic artists of the past. S�M presented performance art and sculpture and photography and took over from painting as the leading media for artmaking. The spirit of S�M has since then hovered over the art scene, along with the tradition of landscape painting and is visible in the works of many contemporary artists in Iceland, especially from the early postmodernist generation. Ragna R�bertsd�ttir, for instance, has taken a S�M-like minimal approach to the tradition of landscape painting with quite effective results. She collects gravel from mountains, pounds them down to bits like coarse pigment and glues them straight on the wall as a monochrome. Birgir Andr�sson, another artist from the early postmodern generation, writes texts on colored plates which he defines as "Icelandic" colors, and describes landscapes or natural phenomenon, like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The artist who was raised by a blind father used to describe images to him the same way he now does in his text paintings, projecting images of Iceland.
Conceptuality and landscape painting
In a land where people have identified themselves with the landscape and struggled with forces of nature for centuries, Western city-mentality has taken over the Icelandic ways at super speed. Western comfort was actually not accessible to the Icelandic public until WW2, with the allied forces, first the Brits and then the US, bringing Hershey bars and chewing gum to a nation that was used to dried fish and sour ram testicles for their evening snacks.
For contemporary artists such as Hrafnkell Sigurdsson and Einar Garibaldi Eir�ksson, tradition and presence, have become motives in their artworks. Hrafnkell Sigurdsson�s photographs of snowdrifts on parking lots are well within the tradition of landscape painting, showing how landscape is formed inside the city. In another series, Hrafnkell Sigurdsson has photographed tents that stand alone in vast nature, forming a mountain-like structure within each picture and in his most recent piece Sigurdsson photographed close-ups of garbage bags on streets, as another way of looking at landscapes forming within a city.
Einar Garibaldi Eir�ksson tackles the tradition of landscape painting in a slightly different manner. Using symbols for landscapes, such as wet landscape, rough landscape etc. as are used on maps. Eir�ksson�s paintings do not show pictures of landscapes in a traditional manner, nor do they project or describe specific images, as in the case of Birgir Andr�sson. Instead, they simply tell us what kind of landscape we are looking at and allow the observer to create the full image in his mind.
Conjunction of the arts
In opposition to Iceland’s "blue-chip" artists such as Robertsdottir, Andr�sson, Sigurdsson and Eiriksson, there are contemporary artists who completely ignore tradition or any cultural inheritance. This is the youngest generation- artists who have come forth since the late 90�s and are the result of the effect of globalization upon Iceland. Most of them were raised in Reykjav�k, and look to the entertainment industry for the subject of their work.
Birgir �rn Thoroddsen is a visual artist who is also a member of the pop trio Ghostdigital and a producer for the metal group Minus. Through his music career Thoroddsen has learned to use the media, newspapers and radio gossip programs, who are always ready to take part in his prosaic performances and announce what time he will be eating a hamburger in a McDonalds restaurant or how many grams he lost in his last week diet.
Egill Saebjornsson is yet another artist who concerns himself with media and entertainment. A video-performance artist that a few years ago put on a wig and created a pop idol name: "Eaglethorpe". Egill wrote songs, learned to play instruments and made pop videos for his alter ego, actually drawing attention of his musical industriousness. Egill saw reason to create a conjunction of the visual arts and the music scene that has been flowering over the last years and he now performs equally in concerts halls as a pop singer and in art spaces as a performance artist. Egill took advantage of the gateways opened by Bjork�s and Sigur Ros�s success in the international music scene.
Of course, as artists see the success of Danish/Icelandic artist, �lafur El�asson, there is an awakening enthusiasm for visual arts in Iceland, especially with the Icelandic public, who follow El�asson�s conquests with great interest in the media. Ironically, Eliasson�s works are reminiscence of the S�M spirit, inspired by Icelandic landscape and are quite entertaining. He is therefore a perfect representative of governing values in Icelandic art (even though he has lived there only sporadically). While Eliasson embraces his success in London, Berlin and New York, Icelandic artists are enjoying the public’s rising interest at home. Living art thrives in all corners. Reykjav�k is where it’s all happening now!
