Staged Moments by listasafnislands

Staged Moments

22.1.— 8.5.2022

Staged Moments

Staged Moments throws light on one of the most diverse divisions of the National Gallery of Iceland collection – the photograph. The works span the period from the 1970s to the present day, and the focus is on highlighting diversity in the use of the photographic medium, which is complex in nature and branches out in many different directions. Photography’s status as an art form has risen greatly in recent decades; in the past the photograph was not recognised as a legitimate work of art, due to its quality of reproducibility, which was seen as inconsistent with the principle of the unique and sublime in the arts. In Iceland, the use of photography by conceptual artists in the 1960s and 70s may be said to have led to its first being appreciated as an art form. Initially the photographic medium was used as a means of documentation of performance art, the photograph being the only evidence that the piece had been per formed – but the photograph was also specifi cally presented as a work of art in its own right, as in the case of Sigurður Guðmundsson’s photo series Situations, made 1971—1982. In these works the photographic work is designated as the work of art itself, yet at the same time the artist sees his works as situations, poetry or sculpture rather than photographs. The 1980s and 90s saw a boom in photography, due to the emergence of a new generation who studied at art academies abroad. The aesthetics of the everyday became a widespread theme in the latter years of the 20th century, together with

a new vision of nature and environment. In step with advances in digital technology over the past twenty years, photography has undergone radical change and gained recognition as an art form within contemporary art. As a result photographic works have come to feature regularly among the acquisitions of art museums; the National Gallery of Iceland has, for instance, purchased works by many contemporary photographers, and by artists who use the documentary potential of photography technology in staging their ideas and capturing the perfect moment. The exhibition, displayed in two galleries, is guided by a number of concepts that may be said to be dominant internationally in the photographic works of contemporary artists and photographers. The photograph as a document The introduction in conceptual art of photography as documentation of performance art entailed a two-fold impact on the position of the photograph as an artistic medium: it was documentation of a work of art, and also became a work of art in itself. In the documentation of performance art the artist generally plays the leading role: self-portraits are presented in a dramatised manner, referencing gender roles, religion, a dialogue with art history, ideas of nationality, and exigent questions about humanity‘s domination of nature. Works of this kind are often time-consuming to make, and may take days, weeks or even months to realise – such as Mountain by Sigurður Guðmundsson, made in 1980—1982, which is a key work in Icelandic art history.

22.1—8.5.2022

The photograph as a temporal medium In her book On Photography, Susan Sontag points out that photography brought us consciousness of the transience of all things: that which exists will vanish, and that which lives will die – or that all photographs are in a sense memento mori, reminders of mortality, whether the mortality of the moment or of a person. The photograph creates memories, maintains them, and makes new ones. Artists Halldór Ásgeirsson, Steingrímur Eyfjörð, Hallgerður Hallgrímsdóttir and Bjargey Ólafsdóttir all share the approach of using the potential of the photographic medium in order to document the emotional relationship with the world and the past, where the subjects are the moment between doom and salvation, the other world, and the loss of a child. Their works share the quality of presenting a hazy, dreamlike, sometimes disturbing image of a world, which makes the observer eager to explore further. The photograph as a political and philosophical medium Icelandic contemporary artists have increasingly taken nature as their subject, examining the interplay of humanity and nature, and human attempts to harness nature. Certain natural phenomena may be placed in a new context, drawing the observer’s attention to the constant changes taking place, such as the global heating which threatens Iceland’s glaciers, extinction of species, genetically-modified foodstuffs, and mass migration, for example. Controversy surrounding the hydro-electric power station constructed at Kárahnjúkar in the Icelandic highlands in the early years of this

century gave rise to powerful photographic works by Pétur Thomsen which address urgent questions about humankind’s impact on nature, while also documenting the progress of the construction project. The artist carried out the work guided by theories of the sublime put forward by 18th-century philosopher Edmund Burke, who saw the sublime as arising from terror and pain, as opposed to the pleasure derived from experiencing beauty. Photography has often been deemed more capable than other media of providing a new perspective on reality, and artists have applied the medium as a tool for philosophical musings, especially phenomenological ones, where perception of environment and time is documented through photography. The works of Katrín Elvarsdóttir, Ólafur Elíasson, Ívar Brynjólfsson, Spessi, Hrafnkell Sigurðsson and Bára Kristinsdóttir are testimony of photography whose import is ideological, no less than aesthetic. The photographs testify to the artists‘ vision of the world, their outlook on nature, interior conflict, the desire to conserve reality, and at the same time to make their mark upon it. Staged Moments testifies to the way that photography has flourished as an art over the past fifty years, establishing the photograph as an art form on equal footing with other, olderestablished art media. Today photography is respected as a multifarious medium in a state of constant evolution, that has considerably expanded the bounds of contemporary art.

Curator Vigdís Rún Jónsdóttir Exhibition Project Manager Vigdís Rún Jónsdóttir Texts Vigdís Rún Jónsdóttir Rakel Pétursdóttir Translation Anna Yates Marketing Guðrún Jóna Halldórsdóttir Events and Educational Programme Ragnheiður Vignisdóttir Technical Supervision, Photography and Recordings Sigurður Gunnarsson Conservation Ólafur Ingi Jónsson Nathalie Jacqueminet Installation Helgi Már Kristinsson Ísleifur Kristinsson Ólafur Ingi Jónsson Sigurður Gunnarsson

Photo on cover:

Listasafn Íslands Fríkirkjuvegur 7, 101 Reykjavík

Artists Anna Hallin Olga Bergmann Árni Ingólfsson Bára Kristín Kristinsdóttir Bjargey Ólafsdóttir Bjarki Bragason Bjarni H. Þórarinsson Daníel Magnússon Erling Klingenberg Gjörningaklúbburinn Halldór Ásgeirsson Hallgerður Hallgrímsdóttir Hildur Hákonardóttir Hlynur Hallsson Hrafnkell Sigurðsson Hreinn Friðfinnsson Inga Svala Þórsdóttir Wu Shanzhuan Ívar Brynjólfsson Jóna Hlíf Halldórsdóttir Katrín Bára Elvarsdóttir Katrín Sigurðardóttir Magnús Sigurðarson Ólafur Elíasson Ólafur Lárusson Ólöf Nordal Pétur Thomsen Roni Horn Sara Björnsdóttir Sigurður Guðmundsson Sigurjón Jóhannsson Sólveig Aðalsteinsdóttir Spessi Stefán Jónsson Steingrímur Eyfjörð Svala Sigurleifsdóttir Tumi Magnússon Valgerður Guðlaugsdóttir Þorvaldur Þorsteinsson