Autumn Exhibitions

The “Corpus” group exhibition at Gerðarsafn features artists from diverse backgrounds. These artists prompt viewers to contemplate the body by using textures, presence, materiality, color nuances, and progression to address complex relationships between gender, race, ecology, and technology. Here, the body is not static but ever-changing and intertwined with its environment. The exhibition is diverse and includes, for example, a two-channel video installation where viewers lie on the floor and watch the piece projected onto the ceiling.

The curator of Corpus, Daría Sól Andrews, has plenty on her plate as she is also directing the visual arts biennial Sequences in October. This event features a large number of both Icelandic and international artists. It is the largest contemporary art festival in the country and has gained significant recognition abroad. This year’s theme is slowness – a reminder for people to enjoy the moment and reflect on the inner timing of the artworks, so to speak.

The main exhibition venues are Kling & Bang and The Living Art Museum in the Marshall House, as well as the Nordic House. The festival will include both site-specific exhibitions and a variety of performances. Sequences has always focused on time-based visual art.

At the Marshall House, in i8 Gallery in Grandi, around the same time, an approximately 80-hour recording of Ragnar Kjartansson’s performance in Moscow will be shown. A major museum in the city was turned into a studio, and 87 episodes of the American soap opera Santa Barbara were recorded there. Russian and Ukrainian actors, under the direction of Ása Helga Hjörleifsdóttir, performed one episode per day, live for an audience. The entire process was filmed and will now be shown for the first time. Filming stopped when Russia invaded Ukraine, although the original plan was to record 100 episodes. The episodes are in Russian with English subtitles.

Kristín Gunnlaugsdóttir will have a large solo exhibition, "Unspoken" this September at the Reykjavík Art Museum – Kjarvalsstaðir, as part of a series reviewing the careers of working artists. A book will be published with interviews and essays about Kristín, and the exhibition will thoroughly showcase her career. She is also working on a number of new pieces specifically for the exhibition.

Architect Arnhildur Pálmadóttir will present her work “Lavaforming” at the Reykjavík Art Museum – Hafnarhús after the new year, a piece that was recently shown at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

At the National Gallery of Iceland, a major exhibition of works by the artistic duo Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson will also open after the new year. The exhibition, titled Sea Blue (Sjávarblámi), centers on whales.

In Akureyri, three new exhibitions will open during the Akureyrarvaka festival, including shows by Ýmir Grönvold and James Merry, who is perhaps best known locally for his mask designs for the musician Björk Guðmundsdóttir.

One of the highlights of the winter art season is an exhibition of works by Steina, “Playback”, a collaborative project between the country’s two major art institutions: the National Gallery of Iceland and the Reykjavík Art Museum. The last time the two museums collaborated in this way was 20 years ago (for Dieter Roth). Steina is an enormously significant figure in Icelandic art history, although not widely recognized, and this exhibition spans her entire career. Many works that have never been shown in Iceland before will be on display. Steina is a pioneer of video art and new media worldwide, and her influence has been profound across the globe. The works will be exhibited in eight galleries across both museums, starting October 4.

It's also worth mentioning that at BERG Contemporary gallery on Klapparstígur, a large installation "The Brotherhood" by the late Woody Vasulka, Steina's husband, is currently on view. The work touches on masculine ideas about the destructive power of the machine. At the same venue, there is also an exhibition of works by Kristján Steingrímur.