Icelandic Art Center — Out There

In this episode, co-host Becky Forsythe @bforsythe and Þorhildur Tinna Sigurðardottir @tindilfaetta meet with collaborative art partnership Bryndis Snæbjörnsdottir and Mark Wilson @markwilson9539, or Snæbjörnsdottir/Wilson, whose 20-year interdisciplinary art practice explores and tests human and more-than-human relational behaviours within specific locations, in a context of environmental change....

In this podcast episode, Becky and Tinna speak with art historian and curator Heiðar Kári Rannversson about his work locally and internationally, and recently opened exhibitions Sóley Ragnarsdóttir, Queen of Hearts, and Þór Vigfússon, Numbers, places in Gerðarsafn. Heiðar Kári most recently he held a position at the Nordatlantens Brygge in Copenhagen from 2018 to 2022.  He has curated multiple sho...

In this episode of Icelandic Art Center’s Out there podcast we speak with artists Gunnhildur Hauksdóttir and Unnar Örn, who are board members at Safnasafnið, The Icelandic Folk and Outsider Art Museum. The Icelandic Folk and Outsider Art Museum was founded in 1995 by Níels Hafstein and Magnhildur Sigurðardóttir in Svalbardseyri, in north Iceland. For 30 years the founders and board of the museum h...

In this episode of Icelandic Art Center’s Out there podcast we spoke to the curator Heiðar Kári Rannversson who has been keeping busy with a few exhibitions recently opened locally in Iceland. We discuss the exhibition spring that has sprung in Iceland with a couple of exciting solo exhibitions having opened in Kling & Bang; Andri Björgvinsson and Tara & Silla and the National Gallery; Ann...

Artist Amanda Riffo joins us to discuss newly receiving the 2024 Icelandic Art Prize Artist of the Year award, exhibitions, projects, residencies and creative coincidences. Amanda received the award based on her exhibition House of Purkinje , her first major solo show, which was exhibited in The Living Art Museum in 2023 and curated by Sunna Ástþórsdóttir. Amanda’s natural storytelling takes us th...

Artist Egill Sæbjörnsson joins Becky & Tinna to discuss his solo exhibit at the National Gallery of Iceland titled Egill Sæbjörnsson and Infinite Friends of the Universe. In the exhibition, Egill invites an infinite number of friends to join in an instance of togetherness in the endless playroom of art. On view until February 25th 2024, so make sure you make the visit whilst you can! This is t...

In this episode we meet artist Hekla Dögg Jónsdóttir @hekladoggjonsdottir to discuss her current mid-career retrospective at Reykjavík Art Museum – Kjarvalsstaðir @reykjavikartmuseum, an ongoing series of exhibitions that aims to draw attention to and celebrate the various contributions made by artists in Iceland. Hekla Dögg Jónsdóttir is an artist who supports other artists, whether through invit...

In this episode of Icelandic Art Center’s podcast “Out There” Tereza Eyrún Hofová does a take over of the podcast and talks to Teo Ala-Ruona, Johhan Rosenberg and Netti Nüganen. Tera was assisting Sequences Art Festival production being a part of an internship programme run by the festival and the Icelandic Art Center. Young Boy Dancing Group's performance is the art work of the month, with th...

Artist Ragnar Kjartansson joins us in this episode and we travel along the spectrum of emotions including love and understanding, fear satire and fakery. Ragnar shares stories about art for theater, the role of fiction, feminism and pushing things to the end in his works, exhibitions, radical meetings and collaborations. As one of the most recognized and well-loved contemporary artists of our time...

In this episode we critically unpack For Those Who Couldn’t Cross the Sea with curator Elham Fakouri and Sabina Westerholm, Director of the Nordic House. We discuss exhibition themes, the unique position of the Nordic House within the Icelandic art world and some of the inner workings of curating in public institutions. This episode concludes with focus on the current exhibition at the Nordic Hous...

In this episode we speak with Sigurður Guðmundsson, Artist and co-founder of the international contemporary art museum ARS LONGA, initiated with Þór Vigfússon & Ineke Guðmundsson in 2021 and based in Djúpivogur. We talk about the upcoming summer show that is to open at ARS LONGA on the 8th of July, summer 2023. Sigurður tells us stories spanning his career, plays some symphonies that resonate...

In this episode we converse with Pari Stave, Director at Skaftfell Art Center. Pari shares her vision for fostering a connected art community in Seyðisfjörður and newly nurturing the interdependencies between the many art initiatives that can be found in the fjord. We equally discuss the unique international profile of the institution and its legacy, as well as the challenges of being geographical...

The new episode of Out There features the exhibition series The Wheel I - V, represented by Kristín Dagmar Jóhannesdóttir curator of “THE WHEEL V: All is Well”, the last and final iteration of the annual series, and Haraldur Jónsson visual artist and chairman of the exhibition committee of the Reykjavík Association of Sculptors. Becky and Tinna get to know the Association’s origin story and past p...

This episode of Out There features artist-led initiative Open, represented by two of the founding members Arnar Ásgerisson and Örn Alexander Ámundason. Open is both a shared artist studio and an artist run exhibition space. Founded and organized by artists Arnar Ágeirsson, Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, Una Margrét Árnadóttir and Örn Alexander Ámundason, Open is the groups studio space on a daily basis...

In this episode we critically unpack Tracing Fragments with curator Daría Sól Andrews and Brynja Sveinsdóttir, Director of Gerðarsafn. We discuss exhibition themes, Gerðarsafn’s unique position within the Icelandic art and museum community, and the inner workings of independent curating in public institutions. Tracing Fragments includes works by Kathy Clark, Sasha Huber, Hugo Llanes, Frida Orupabo...

In this episode of Icelandic Art Center’s podcast “Out There” Becky and Tinna talk with Maria Alyokhina, or Masha from Pussy Riot, about the exhibition Velvet Terrorism in Kling & Bang Gallery which has generated an important response in the local and international context. The exhibition comes to a close for now this coming Sunday at the end of January 2023. This conversation covers the &nbsp...

In this episode of Out There Becky and Tinna discuss what is taking place at Iceland University of the Arts, from the perspectives of artist and head of the fine art department Bjarki Bragason and curator and Professor Hanna Styrmisdóttir. Sharing their personal experience and diverse professional backgrounds, Bjarki and Hanna contribute to the progressive and expanding art university in Iceland....

In this episode of Icelandic Art Center’s podcast “Out There” Lukas Strolia (LT), who was assisting the Icelandic Art Center as a part of the Borderland Poetics exchange project between Rupert (LT) and CCA (EE), talks to his colleagues J.L. Murtaugh (US) and Erik Vojevodin (LT) about the artist-run space Autarkia , Vilnius. Autarkia is located in the former workers’ canteen at the long-gone secret...

The episode is devoted to speaking with Sigurður Guðjónsson who is best known for his striking time-based media works that often focus on human-made machinery and technical relics, investigating their enigmatic, hidden elements, just beyond our field of vision. Becky and Tinna talked with Siggi about his contribution to La Biennale di Venezia, the multisensory sculpture Perpetual Motion. They als...

The second episode of the second season of Icelandic Art Center’s #podcast ‘Out There’ is out there! (link in bio) The episode includes conversation with Becky Forsythe @bforsythe and Þórhildur Tinna Sigurðardóttir @tindilfaetta and the Artist in Iceland Visa Action Group @aiv.ag members Wiola Ujazdowska @wiola.ujazdowska and Bryndís Björnsdóttir aka. Dísa @di_official_sa. AIVAG is an advocacy gro...

In this episode, artist Katie Paterson and writer Andri Snær Magnason talk about the world we live in, the catastrophic consequences of the human race’s behavior, and how art can be a power of change. Katie Paterson is widely regarded as one of the leading artists of her generation. She recently exhibited in the Living Art Museum in Reykjavík with the exhibition The Earth Has Many Keys . The...

Art collective Lucky 3 is composed of Darren Mark, Dýrfinna Benita Basalan and Melanie Ubaldo. From the perspective of their “collective, first-person immigrant experience” the group has recently opened up new space for conversation on diaspora, displacement, vulnerability and belonging. The collective´s Filipino-Icelandic origins informed their breakthrough exhibition Lucky Me? , held in Kling &a...

Guðjón Ketilsson is the current recipient of the Artist of the Year award from the Icelandic Art Prize. In this episode we meet him in the studio in downtown Reykjavík. We discuss early memories of art, his first solo exhibition, school abroad and specific works that span his over thirty-year practice. Guðjón’s experience of emerging into an art scene with the raw presence of the avant-garde gives...

In this episode Claire Paugam , a multidisciplinary French artist based in Reykjavík, shares her practice, themes and experiences from within the studio. An active board member of the Living Art Museum and community, Claire is the current recipient of the Motivational Award of the Year. This recognition is given by the Icelandic Art Prize to an emerging artist who has contributed significantly to...

What does the Icelandic art scene look like today? What can we learn from within the artists’ studio? By getting out there into the scene, our field , the studio, the storage, the artist-led space, gallery and museum, and by looking around us? Icelandic Art Center’s podcast Out There brings these things into focus and more. It is a new reflection on a specific place and our present moment; a widen...