About
POLIS in Wroclaw
Nature is invaluable and so is life from its very start in
the womb, our children and the freedom to live our lives in
peace. In a perfect world all this belongs to everyone but
we do not live in that world, our world is complicated by
innumerable things which start at home and extend to the
international community, political, economical, commercial
and artistic. The tension that this creates is a theme that
connects all the artworks of POLIS, a show created by five
Icelandic women artists.
There is tension in the selling of Icelandic nature to the
highest bidder, in the building of hydro-electric projects
serving international companies with cheap electricity.
Unique areas of unspoiled nature are gone forever and in
the future even more might be lost. This loss and the
fragile existence of Icelandic nature is the core of the
artworks of Borghildur Óskarsdóttir, it is reflected in the
empty moulds of clay, in the photographs showing that which
is not there.
The tension between living, organic material and
technological experiments that go beyond our imagination,
the contradiction between folkloristic legends and modern
genealogy is the main focus of the works of Ólöf Nordal in
this show.
The freedom of our children is what Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir
deals with in her work in POLIS, images of the role-playing
which starts at an early age are set against a background
showing the fast growing capital of Iceland. Along with
this sounds the empty laughter usually connected with
soap-operas on TV, now eerie and hollow, reflecting on the
complicated society children are a part of today.
Children and war and the effects of war on society in
general is displayed without mercy in the works of
Valgerdur Gudlaugsdóttir presenting tiny camouflage dresses
for babies, embroidered balaclavas for everyone, unique
versions of personal handguns. After 9/11 a wave of
camouflage fashion swept over the western world, - are we
all at war now and are even our babies part of it?
The effects of war are undertones in the works of Eygló
Har›ardóttir showing a different kind of refugees
than the one we see on the news every day, she shows images
of tiny bats that were airborn from the mainland to Iceland
decades ago. They were not always welcome, just as refugees
today. But Eygló´s images show more than that, they reflect
the collective unconscious and each of us sees something
different in their large, coloured patterns.
Ólöf Nordal is one
of not so few contemporary artists in Iceland who seek
inspiration for her art in Icelandic tradition, but only
she can make the link between the past and the present in a
totally witty and deadpan way. Ólöf is a sculptor but also
uses video and photographs is her works and installations.
In one of her series she combined modern toys with
traditional playthings of children in Iceland - ram´s
horns, creating uncanny, disturbing objects. She makes use
of Icelandic folktales and superstitions in many of her
works, f.ex. creating white ravens or toying with the idea
of a cuckoo´s egg, but in an unexpected way linking it with
modern ideas and experiments in genealogy. Ólöf is never
nostalgic and all her works manage to adress various
aspects of contemporary life, such as the battle for
feminism, war, consumerism or the effects of scientific
discoveries on the individual. In an engaged and witty way
Ólöf has shown many young artists a way to come to terms
with their roots without losing their touch with the
present.
It is almost possible to call
Ósk Vilhjálmsdóttir a loner
in the Icelandic art scene, her strong sense of political
commitment is nearly without parallel in Iceland although
Ósk shares her commitment with many of her colleagues in
other countries. Political engagement is strong with
Icelandic artists in general regarding f.ex. nature
preservation but few use it directly in their work as Ósk
does. Her shows and installations are often made in
co-operation with the public, such as her series of works
made with children and teenagers. In a work-shop like
atmosphere Ósk built a small wooden cabin together with
children in various places, both in Iceland and abroad.
Then she asked them to speak for the camera, asking them
about their dreams and desires for the future, showing the
result on a screen inside the cabin. The outcome is an
engaging work of art that reveals the weaker sides of
society in an almost innocent way. Another project of Ósk
was her show in Gallery Hlemmur in Reykjavík in 2003. The
show was called Something Else, pointing to the fact that
many people would indeed like something else than they
have. Ósk changed the gallery into a forum open to all, she
put up a table, chairs and a coffee machine and almost
every day she had more or less formal discussions led by
people with very different backgrounds. The
“show” was an experiment but worked
surprisingly well, with a lot of people coming in every
day, expressing their opinions and making interesting
crossovers between f.ex. university backgrounds, artists,
musicians, dentists or teachers.
In the art of
Borghildur Óskarsdóttir one sees
her background, the past and the present, the near and the
far, the small and the very large. Her viewers have walked
across an image of the earth from its core to the surface,
have watched the constellations of the night sky reflected
in the water of the their swimming pool. She has presented
her family tree and suggested the endless possibilities of
every individual. Icelandic nature is the theme of many of
Borghildur’s works, especially its fragility and the
necessity of its preservation. But even when her works deal
with urgent issues they always invite an open and poetic
reading, in the end it is the viewer that decides, the
artist respects the viewers ability to see and understand.
When
Eygló Hardardóttir looks at
something it is never just a thing or a phenomenon that
needs no further reflection. In all things, everyday or not
she looks for the core, the context and the connection to
all other things. Everything is alive with meaning and so
are her works which can be read and understood on many
levels. The unconscious has played an important part in her
art, she uses images and signs of the human mind, uses
system such as the Rorschach test and plays with the
juxtaposition of this with images from everyday life such
as newspaper images.
The constant bombardment of propaganda on our lives is one
of
Valgerdur Gudlaugsdóttir´s main
themes. She displays the commercialization of women,
children and war, nothing is sacred in her works just as in
the society she reflects on. The constant power struggle in
our everyday life is illlustrated in her more recent works,
the struggle between the sexes, the brute force which more
often than not is used by the stronger to control the
weaker. In a larger context these works reflect on war in
general - Iceland is a country at war, the government
supporting the US invasion in Irak. Nobody is innocent,
even when we think we are we might unknowingly support the
waging of war by dressing ourselves or our children up as
little soldiers, babies ready for camouflage action.
Text by
Art Critic Ragna Sigurdardóttir