A photography exhibition at Gerðarsafn explores vulnerability, self-expression and creative ownership
“When looking at photographs, you allow yourselves to kind of stare at the person in a way you wouldn’t do in real life. But in this exhibition, the people in the photographs, which are often the artists themselves, also stare back at you. They’re not passive. They’re taking control as being part of the works and creating works,” says Brynja Sveinsdóttir, director of Gerðarsafn (Kópavogur Art Museum). Together with Hallgerður Hallgrímsdóttir, Brynja is curating Stare (Stara in Icelandic), a photography exhibition that opened as a part of the Icelandic Photography Festival.
On a crisp January morning, I took a ride to Kópavogur to meet the curators, a few days before the exhibition’s opening.
Raw exposure
Stare is a group exhibition of eight local and international artists: Adele Hyry, Dýrfinna Benita Basalan, Jenny Rova, JH Engström, Jói Kjartans, Kristinn G. Harðarson, Michael Richardt and Sadie Cook. “This exhibition makes an attempt to show a very raw way of approaching diaristic photography,” says Brynja as we walk through the museum’s half-assembled displays. “Artists are using photography and also other mediums — it’s not all photographs — to unveil themselves and talk about their inner life, their loved ones, and project onto society.”
Hallgerður adds: “I think [they’re] also using photography to look at themselves, to reveal many identities that we inhabit, or the many layers of identities that we have. Photography can be such a strong medium to do that.”
Exhibition curators: Hallgerdur Hallgrímsdóttir (left) & Brynja Sveinsdóttir (right)
Time is one of the running themes of the exhibition, with multiple series spanning across decades of the artists’ lives.
JH Engström explored decades of personal archives, selecting portraits of himself, other men and trans people. Jói Kjartans documents the 12 years he shared with his ex-partner. Adele Hyry presents work spanning 20 years — beginning with a self-portrait at age nine. Jenny Rova displays images captured by her lovers from 1992 to 2017.
“We get to follow in the footsteps of the artists through their lives. Of course, we’re not experiencing their lives, but we get a little glimpse into them,” says Hallgerður. “We get a sense of them, and how they evolve and change through time. In photography theory, there’s always talk about death, Roland Barthes talks about how we are closer to death as soon as the picture has been taken. But we’ve been wondering — aren’t we also just more into life? Aren’t we more ourselves?”
Another distinct feature of the exhibition is that some artists aren’t afraid to push beyond traditional expectations of photographic art. Helsinki-based artist Adele Hyry, for example, embraces the usually hidden properties of the medium — errors, blur, double exposure, obstructions. “For the longest time, a ‘good photograph’ had to be properly exposed and framed, following certain composition and printing rules. But many artists in this exhibition are using the other side of the medium, where it’s quick and grabbing, and things happen by accident and happenstance,” says Hallgerður.
Author or subject?
Some of the exhibition’s displays explore murky questions of artistic authorship. In her work Älskling, photographer Jenny Rova, who works between Switzerland and Sweden, presents self-portraits spanning 25 years, all taken by former partners and lovers — including raw, intimate moments captured during sex.
“It’s 80 pictures that are of her, but of course, she never pushed the button in any of them,” Hallgerður explains. “She’s a photographer, and she’s both the muse for the pictures, but also the artist because she gathers them and creates this series. The pictures are just her, but are they her pictures?,” she remarks, pointing out the grey areas of creative ownership.
Performance artist Michael Richardt also plays with the idea of authorship, presenting a documentary film about himself and his mother, directed by Cecilie Debel. As Brynja explains, “he takes ownership of the narrative by transforming it into a performance.”
“The film, which looks at his relationship with his mother and the complexities of their family dynamic, becomes a performance piece where he shows up painted in blue — and stays painted blue throughout the whole film. The clothing that he wears — designed by him — has its own meaning and tells a story of its own,” she adds.
Vulnerable layers
As the winter sunlight filters in, it highlights the wall where Sadie Cook’s photos are displayed — a mix of large and small images, some even with an added layer of texture. The curators explain that the size of the photos doesn’t necessarily equate to their importance. In fact, the smaller ones may be meant to be experienced more intimately.
“This is actually a very dramatic work,” says Hallgerður. “But also there’s still also a lot of love and beauty in it at the same time,” Brynja adds.
The artist divides the work into images taken in different rooms, each inhabited by different ghosts. Addressing the aftermath of sexual assault, the work also explores how life evolves and how we navigate trauma and relationships.
“There’s family, warmth and harshness,” Brynja explains. “Sadie said themselves that one room can encompass different layers of experiences — the same room can be this memory of a very happy moment, but also a panic attack.”
In contrast to the printed photograms on the walls, The Frame by Paris-based Swedish photographer JH Engström features a series of projected photos, accompanied by a steel frame holding a black-and-white image of moraine rocks — a sediment left behind by glaciers thousands of years ago.
“In a sense, he’s thinking about masculinity — what masculinity is and how it may have been stuck at the same time for the longest time,” says Brynja as the projection changes, showing self-portraits of the artist alongside photos of others.
She gestures toward the framed rocks beside the projection, “The idea behind this image in the series is to consider it also as a portrait and to think about masculinity as something that has been stuck for so long, but also how it may need to shift and change.”
“He’s very unprecious about the medium,” says Hallgerður.
Brynja nods, “It’s definitely a case of knowing the rules to break them.”
The theme of vulnerability is amplified in Hildur (The End) by Jói Kjartans, a long-time contributor to the Grapevine, known for creating numerous magazine covers over the years. In the exhibition, now Oslo-based Jói presents a series of intimate triptychs, each capturing a year in his life with his ex-partner, Hildur. These photos allow viewers to witness the evolution of their relationship — from its beginnings to the birth of their first child, and the gradual shift that ultimately led to its end.
“I think vulnerability is also a theme within the exhibition,” says Hallgerður. “It is vulnerable to present your previous relationship or yourself in many different situations. Whether it’s work dealing with sexual assault, finding your identity, or even dealing with your own sense of masculinity and how you feel that needs a shift — it’s all kind of vulnerable.”
Beyond the frame
The exhibition takes things a step further by incorporating video, sculpture, and even embroidery. One of the pieces artist of Filipino and Icelandic descent, Dýrfinna Benita Basalan brings to Stare is an oversized school desk and chair with drawings and sketches, evoking the struggles of being a teenager and the feeling of not quite fitting in.
Kristinn G. Harðarson’s embroidered works could almost be considered collaborative. The pieces stem from quick sketches his wife made while browsing real estate ads, planning their dream home. “He would take these very quick sketches and create artworks from them by embroidering them, taking the time to do it with exactly the same colour tones, the same thread, the thickness of the lines,” Brynja explains. “It’s a work that he has developed and created an artwork from something spontaneous. So, it’s also maybe a bit theoretical or philosophical — the search of what makes an artist, what makes an artwork.”
“We really like to stretch the medium a bit,” she adds. “To play with creating exhibitions which have a very strong core in photography, but allowing the meaning to be kind of translated into different mediums.”
Hallgerður notes that since Gerðasafn is dedicated to sculptor Gerður Helgadóttir, “everything you want to have just on the walls, becomes a little bit undynamic.” She pauses thoughtfully before adding, “Maybe photography becomes even stronger when you have something else along with it.”
Before I leave, I ask the curators about the exhibition’s name, Stare. “We are looking at the art, the photographer was looking at the subject, but often the subject was looking back as well,” says Hallgerður. “There’s a lot of augnaráð — a lot of eyes meeting.”
Stare is on view at Gerðasafn until April 19
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