In the Ásmundarsalur office, I sit across from artists Miles Greenberg and Viðar Logi. Even through the closed door, atmospheric music bleeds in from the exhibition room, and their exhibition’s signature scent still faintly lingers in the air. The music and the scent — made by composer Personaljjesus and the Fischersund Collective, respectively — add sensory details to the artists’ ongoing exhibition: Sex Tape.
“We met through our mutual community in Reykjavík. So to be able to do something here means a lot to both of us,” explains Miles Greenberg. “I felt like there was something nice about being able to start with a bit of a joke and say, ‘Well, what, what could we possibly show in a museum context to a lot of people that we already love, and that love us back?’ and the answer sort of started where I was like, ‘Well, let’s just release our sex tape,’ kind of as an ‘lol.’ And then it snowballed.”
Miles and Viðar have been a couple for years, but this is their first exhibition as a pair. Miles is a performance artist and sculptor raised in Canada, and Viðar is a photo and video artist from Dalvík. They are well-lauded creatives: both have landed on Forbes 30 Under 30 lists, and they’ve each extensively exhibited internationally. The two are in the orbit of other exciting artists; Viðar is a consistent portrait photographer for Björk, and Miles has worked under the mentorship of theatre artist Robert Wilson and conceptual performance artist Marina Abramović.
The exhibition space
There are three distinct works within their exhibition, all held in the magnificent light from the Ásmundarsalur windows. Miles presents five sculptures, each resting on a mirrored podium; Viðar offers two wall-sized photograms; and, the two screen a thermal rendering of their sex tape, which is directed by Viðar. All portray bodies, specifically queer bodies, in different, slightly-obscured forms.
The exhibition statement reads: “Each employed their own and one another’s bodies, as well as the bodies of others, in an attempt to blur the lines between them.” Miles elaborates on this, explaining, “I think that, especially when I’m performing, I try to turn my body more into an avatar. I don’t think that it’s about ourselves as Viðar and Miles, but I think that here we were trying to portray something more divinely queer.”
Photo by Art Bicnick
New techniques of rendering
Miles’s sculptures are 3D-printed captures of a group’s movements during an orgy, using a handheld scanner intended for monitoring static industrial parts. There’s a distinctive dynamic quality to the figures in the sculptures, which are technically maquettes, which I learn comes from Miles’s alterations to the tool. “I took away its ability to understand movement, in order for it to just allow the glitches to happen,” he explains. “A big part of the price point is the fact that it can [understand movement]. So, I basically killed off the expensive part,” he laughs, adding, “It creates these 3D meshes that I cannot re-stage. It’s in the same way that when you do a performance, you can’t go backwards.”
Viðar’s photographic prints also render an orgy. “I am self-taught, and I always wanted to learn these things, but I never did. So, obviously, in a very Viðar fashion, I decided to make it as hard for myself as possible to make this happen by making these massive prints,” he explains. He entered the darkroom with collaborator Sasha Kasiuha — “He’s studied Biochemical Engineering in Ukraine, so it’s like, ‘perfect, you know some things about chemicals. Let’s do it.’ I had no, like, darkroom expert with me,” Viðar notes.
The two began to experiment. “The interesting part, that maybe sets us apart from other photograph work, is that we introduced chemicals into it in a stage that is kind of unconventional. We doused the papers in chemicals pre-exposure,” he explains, adding, “We tried poppers, we tried egg whites, and had Miles go to hot yoga and wring his T-shirt.” In the experimentation, Viðar found that pineapple juice with sparkling water was a personal favourite; the enzymes in the juice caught DNA traces, such as fingerprints, that remained visible after developing.
“I’m all about practical effects. I love practical effects, like, some magic that I can make happen in front of me,” Viðar concludes.
The sex tape
The third work in the exhibition is their sex tape, displayed on a screen in the gallery. The two used a thermographic camera that is often used by construction workers, specifically acquiring one that they had to ship from Texas to New York, which recorded in high quality. To Viðar, using a thermal camera “is stripping everything back.”
“This is all work that is very, very, very close to both of our hearts,” Miles states. “But [exhibiting in Reykjavík] also allowed us to have a certain degree of levity with the process where it wasn’t, ‘how do we make some statement of grandiosity to an anonymous public who we’re trying to earn the respect of.’” Viðar adds, “We didn’t want to do anything pretentious for our community here.”
The video ebbs between tender and intense, and the thermal rendering maintains focus on the warmth of the sexual encounter. “It was never meant to be sexy and it was never meant to be grotesque,” Viðar notes. “It’s just always about intimacy, sharing body heat, and maybe diving into your subconscious a little bit, if you get there. But I’m not gonna expand on that. Just let the viewer decide for himself. My wish is the viewer leaves,” Viðar pauses to think for a moment. “Like, they’re allowed to leave horny if they want to, but like, that’s definitely not the goal — it’s more like a good cry-fuck, if you will. You’re just very emotional after it.”
When I ask what this exhibition has meant for their relationship, Miles says, “It’s taught us a lot about each other, and I feel like, for a traditional couple, maybe it’s the equivalent of going on your first IKEA trip together. It’s a little bit of a make-or-break. But ultimately, we made it out, very much alive, intact.” Viðar laughs too, summarising, “Our sex tape is our IKEA trip.”
Photo by Art Bicnick
Beauty, queerness, experimentation
Throughout our conversation, several underlying themes of Sex Tape emerge. One is identity, both related to their queerness and their individual upbringings. “What I’ve been thinking about a lot right now is the contradiction of: we’re queer, we make art. Does that make it a queer art show or not?” wonders Viðar. Later, though, he ruminates, “Me growing up gay in Iceland, like, I never had anything like this. You know, if I would have seen this and I was young —” Viðar pauses for a moment, reflecting, “I never thought of that actually.” He continues, “I would have thought that was pretty cool.”
Miles summarises, “I think for both of us, undeniably, beauty is at the centre of this conversation, and gay sex is at the centre of this conversation.” Viðar adds, “To the main point of everything, this show is really just about community.”
Miles elaborates on the importance of their community, explaining, “I allowed myself to try things, like hand painting, and new techniques that I’ve never really tried before, and subject matter, obviously, that I wouldn’t have necessarily explored so much out in the open.” He concludes, “There’s a degree of vulnerability that I don’t think would have necessarily been so easy to take in New York City.”
I ask the two of them if it was intentional to open their first exhibition as a couple in Reykjavík. Miles answers, sharing, “It definitely sort of just happened. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Miles Greenberg and Viðar Logi’s Sex Tape is an ongoing exhibition at Ásmundarsalur, which will run until November 9.
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