Photography
Icelandic photography spans a broad spectrum, as is evident from the work of Magnús Ólafsson (1862-1937),the photographer of daily life, technical advances and social change in the eventful years of the early 20th century; portrait photographer Sigríður Zoëga (1889-1968); Vigfús Sigurgeirsson (1900-1984), known principally for his landscape photography, and many more.
In the present day, the photo-journalist Ragnar Axelsson or RAX (b. 1958) has received countless awards over the years, working as a photographer for Icelandic daily Morgunblaðið as well as such international publications as National Geographic, Time, Life, Stern and Le Figaro.
Guðmundur Ingólfsson (b.1946), on the other hand, is a representative of the New Topographics approach to documentary photography.
Other Icelandic photographers who are well known for their landscape photography and books include e.g. Páll Stefánsson, Sigurgeir Sigurjónsson and Guðmundur Páll Ólafsson.
Haraldur Jónsson (b. 1961), Hrafnkell Sigurðsson (b. 1963), Bjargey Ólafsdóttir (b. 1972) and Katrín Elvarsdóttir (b. 1964), along with the Icelandic Love Corporation, Rúrí (b. 1951) and Gabríela Friðriksdóttir (b. 1971) work with photography in their art. In the past, artists in the SÚM group, such as Sigurður Guðmundsson, had success with photographic art.
In the winter of 2011, the exhibition IS(not) opened, a collaboration between five Icelandic authors and five young Polish photographers from the group Sputnik Photos. Guided by the Icelanders, the Polish photographers travelled far and wide around the country, and the results of the trip – photographs as well as prose – can be seen at the exhibition and its eponymous book.
The contributing writers were Sindri Freysson, Hermann Stefánsson, Huldar Breiðfjörð, Kristín Heiða Kristinsdóttir and Sigurbjörg Þrastardóttir. The photographers were Adam Pańczuk, Agnieszka Rayss, Jan Brykczyński, Michał Łuczak and Rafał Milach.
Part of the exhibition placed second as portrait series of the year in the photography competition Pictures of the Year International. Further information: www.icelandictales.sputnikphotos.com
Photography exhibition in Frankfurt
Frontiers of another Nature
Contemporary photographic art from Iceland
Fotografie Forum Frankfurt is guest at Frankfurter Kunstverein
19. August – 16. October 2011 (press conference and opening: 18th of august)
Creative minds in Iceland have a tendency to wander. They study abroad, strategically situated between North America and Europe; a flight to Paris or New York is far shorter than driving to Akureyri, the second largest town in the country. They also have a tendency to wander back home, finding visual dialog with - natura naturata - and their homeland's suburban and industrial growth. The extreme landscape from lava deserts, numerous waterfalls, valleys and glaciers, climate and constant geological activity are permanent offerings for travel, nature or scientific photographers. These genres as sources of awe and examination are multi-fold in publications and internet sites. Even a farm next to Eyjafjallajökull displays updates of the landscape conditions of the 2010 eruption site. In Frontiers of another Nature we are accepting a greater challenge to approach this theme from perspectives other than the representation of classic landscape.
Proponents of the contemporary art-scene in Iceland have included photographic media to disseminate their messages since the 1970's. Even though he did not really return permanently, Sigurður Guðmundsson's visual poetry, as he called it, is rooted in the earth of his homeland and performance art. The characteristic work Mountain from 1980-82 is a black and white photograph documenting him embedded as essential strata within boulders, loaves of bread, shoes and books. Rúrí, can be seen as a sort of water princess who has for the last 12 years based most of her work on an Archive of Endangered Waters in several international exhibitions, initiating installations, making photographs and vocal works about her concerns. Olafur Eliasson's 1997 work The Landscape Series is just one example of his work, which epitomizes the contemplative strength and nurturing which he sources from nature. If you are an Icelandic artist, you work trans-medial: including e.g. sculpture, light installation, photographs and sound; combining conceptual and documentary praxis in critical aesthetics.
Frontiers of another Nature will be a unique selection of Icelandic photo-media artists, emerging and established, who work in classic photographic print media and others with video, projection combined with installation. These artists repeatedly draw from the landscape and environment in their work. Most of the artists are little known in Germany and most of these works have never been on view here.
Frontiers of another Nature examines how the photographic arts are essential to examine individual derivations, which constitute the complexities of Icelanders undeniable relationship to their natural environment. This exhibition will introduce ambiguous environments in which the photographers themselves investigate and build visual narratives around/upon the expanse of land, or the loss of it. Here the landscape often performs as metaphor for desire, alienation, magnificence and awe, tradition, irony and rebellion or achievement and deficit.
Artists:
Bára Kristinsdóttir
Einar Falur Ingólfsson
Haraldur Jónsson
Hrafnkell Sigurðsson
Icelandic Love Corporation
Ingvar Högni Ragnarsson
Katrín Elvarsdóttir
Pétur Thomsen
Spessi
Curators:
Celina Lunsford (artistic director at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt) and Christiane Stahl (director of the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung, Berlin) in cooperation with Inga Lára Baldvinsdóttir (curator for photography at the Icelandic National Museum) and María Karen Sigurðardóttir (director of Reykjavík Museum of Photography).
The exhibition is a production of Fotografie Forum Frankfurt in cooperation with the Frankfurt Kunstverein. It is a part of the arts- and cultural program of “Fabulous Iceland", Iceland - Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2011. Director: Halldór Guðmundsson, curator for the arts- and cultural program: Matthias Wagner K.