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Flight of the Valkyries
Without warning or introduction, two young women marched onto the stage and took their positions behind the two standing drums, dressed in semi-military garb. Their faces frozen expressionless, and their movements robotically coordinated, they martially pounded out the rhythm behind Tanz Mit…
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SPENCER TUNICK: BODY PUBLIC
Akureyri Art Museum, until 30 April Spencer Tunick is best known for his treatment of the nude. Or in his case, nudes, often hundreds of them. Since 1994, he has taken numerous photographs of group nudes in Chile, New York, Australia and other…
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Changes to Grassroots
This year, not only the intention behind the exhibition, but the whole organization will be different, thanks to the new board of organizers. Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir and Bryndis Hrönn Ragnarsdóttir have both exhibited at Grassroots, each once in the last two years, and…
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In Case You Missed It: Michael Page at Gel Gallerí
On a scale of one to ten, the need to import creativity to a city like Reykjavík lingers somewhere around a meagre half point. Thousands of artists, musicians, designers, writers, actors, directors, thinkers and self-proclaimed creative heads make it difficult for less…
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Bloody Brilliant
For decades, the movie industry has been fascinated with making films based on comic books. The most recent examples are Sin City, X-men, Fantastic Four, Batman and Spiderman. Some of these films do justice to the comics they’re attempting to capture, others…
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The Reykjavík Marathon Saturday August 20th
Because Reykjavík is so far north, because the air is so clean, and because the sidewalks and roads were laid with a special polymer cushioning, the Reykjavík Marathon is the easiest 26.2-mile race in the world. This explains why more than 1000…
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Videy: Not Just Landscape
Surrounded Blind Pavilion by Ólafur Eliasson was originally made for the Venice Biennale Art Festival in 2003 and was put at Viðey in May this year. It’s easy to climb up the small hill to get to it; pass the washing line…
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GAY PRIDE CELEBRATION: Saturday August 6th
Last year’s Gay Pride Celebration brought in a reported 40,000 visitors, though from our office, downtown Reykjavík looked a good deal more packed than that. As local author Andri Snær Magnason has claimed, the Gay Pride Celebrations in Iceland have surmounted June…
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Soft Colours with Bruising:
“They asked me in Stykkishólmur if I was getting good motivation from the mountains,” Þórdís Aðalsteinsdóttir tells me, as we stand before a softly menacing painting of a fragile woman with bruised knees. Instead of completing the sentence, she half smiles and…
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GRAPEVINE, GISP!, Gallery Lobster or Fame and JPV Publishers Present:Comics in a Bomb Shelter
Comics and large concrete subterranean rooms: ah sweet sweet nostalgia. Of course, few of those involved in the exhibits adorning the walls at the Lobster or Fame Gallery below the Laugavegur Bonus grocery store remember living on a base during WWII or…
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Nei! sagði litla skrímslið (No! said the little monster)
In keeping with our never-ending thirst for Icelandic literature, we dove headfirst into this lauded tome. Nei! won the Bookstore Worker’s Literary Prize in 2004 and was published simultaneously in Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and the Faeroe Islands. While technically a pan-Scandinavian effort,…
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How To View the Woodcarver
After reviewing Jón Adólf Steinsson’s work, one can’t help asking: is it craft, or is it art? In my opinion, the answer lies very much in the viewer. Take “The Judge,” for example. Well-crafted and accessible, Steinsson describes the piece with remarkable…
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The Grapevine Presents A Spoken Word Creation Written for, But Not Performed by, the President of Iceland During the 61st Celebration of Iceland’s Independence, at Austurvöllur, Reykjavík, June 17th 2005.
Fellow citizens. It was on a rainy day 61 years ago that the youthful visionaries of an old nation came together on Þingvellir and declared Iceland’s independence. Vigorously have we marched on, on the solid foundation of the world’s oldest democracy, towards…
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Gullpensillinn (The Gold Brush)
The main space of the gallery, with its high, white walls and spacious windows, is an ideal space for showing work. On the other hand, one smaller room in the back should probably be converted into a storage room: unused tracks for…
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Sound of Money
Description: 1) Four or five separate spaces in one house are all filled with painful noises of fish factories, reproduced through speakers in all corners. All the spaces utilized are white, except one small storage room, full of junk. 2) Headphones lie…
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Snúður skiptir um hlutverk (Snúður changes roles)
There are better ways to learn Icelandic than shelling out fistfuls of cash to attend classes. You can watch English language television, for example, and follow the Icelandic text underneath. You could also head out into the country and try to find…
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The Saga of Guðríður
There are plenty of famous men in the Icelandic Sagas, from future brewer Egill Skallagrímsson to future comic strip cat Gréttir the Strong. Yet no one will be naming a beer after Guðríður Þórbjarnadóttir, even though she holds the distinction of giving…
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Never Poke Your Partner
Sword Fights to Slapstick Although stage fighting sounds like a form of martial arts, it actually has nothing to do with self-defence. Stage fighting is the art of physical conflict used in theatrical productions, movies, television and historical festivals. Stage fights can…
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Dieter Roth
Taking the Dieter Roth train is a trip through the essence of art. All is art, everything Dieter did was an expression of art and the train trip takes you on an unforgettable trip, giving the viewer a whole new perspective on…
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Preaching History
Most of the Icelanders who migrated to North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries went to Canada. But about 400 Icelanders travelled to Utah, following Mormon missionaries and the promise of a paradise on earth in Utah. The exhibition…
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Within the Belly of the beast – America vs. America
We are witnessing liberal rights being chipped away to protect us from hidden enemies. In the USA of today, many outspoken artists are experiencing for the first time since the McCarthy era that they are being censored or even threatened because of…
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God is Corruption Funny
Brace yourself: the cast of Spaugstofan (the Joke Office) is up there with the Goons, the Monty Python Crew, and the original Saturday Night Live cast. The five-member cast has been putting on a weekly broadcast since 1989. They have taken full…
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Comics: Closer than First-Person
I have always had a weakness for comics. My newest favourites are graphic novels that recite history. Just read three books on this subject. They have a common thread, life during wartime experienced through the eyes of the innocents. The visual of…