Art on Ice

Oops

2010-06-30T07:38:00.003-05:00

Well, here's a little surprise.

I was not accepted to the University of Iceland, on the grounds that the course I applied for is taught in Icelandic ergo I must have prior knowledge of the Icelandic language. Which seems reasonable. I suppose if I wanted I could appeal, claiming I have been taking classes, would have been taking more in the future and would just 'deal with it,' but one of the five hundred people I've emailed hasn't gotten back to me on the appeals process.

So it looks like I'll be going to the University of Glasgow instead. And only I could make this sound like a bad thing. Except now I'm stuck with this Icelandic blog and don't know what to do with it. I still want to review/discuss Scandinavian art happenings, so if you're here for that I'm glad you're down for the change of lanes. If you've come expecting a documentary-style transition full of volcanos and skýr, I apologize for the detour.

I still love the Nordic countries, and remain fascinated by the vividness of the arts environment therein. I have some vague ideas of what's to come. The University of Oslo has now announced that it will be accepting foreign students in Norwegian-language classes, if students take a Norwegian course for up to a year prior. But let me just say it was a nice change from hounding eight separate Icelanders to find out, very late, of my doom to accept my offer at Glasgow. The British say 'lovely' a lot.

And Glasgow will certainly give me things to write about, art-wise and culture-shock-wise. Maybe I'll get to meet Anselm Reyle or Jim Lambie!

Anyway, here's my little notice of change-of-venue. Proceed with this knowledge as you wish. I guess now I'll have to change the title, description, expat-blog account....oh my. But wait, I can't understand Scotsmen either!

Andréa Stanislav at Packer Schopf Gallery - Diamond Maps

2010-05-30T12:11:00.001-05:00

So first of all, I'm really pissed about Eurovision. Germany's song is so stupid and not special at all and Lena was totally drunk when she went up to receive the award ("Ooooh, no, Ah've gouta seng now? Owkay, caan yu hold et?"). At least Romania came close. But Serbia and Iceland were ROBBED. Plus, what the hell, Sweden? No points to Hera Björk? Whatever. I can't stop watching the horribleness of the Moldovan sax player.

I recently took a break from the bustle of the suburban gallery world and the silent plight of waiting for Háskóli Íslands aids to respond to me to attend the opening of Packer Schopf Gallery's latest exhibition, to the Western Lands, by Minneapolis-based artist Andréa Stanislav (not so recently, a few weeks ago). A massive collective of mirrors and glitter transform Packer Schopf's phenomenal space into a rococo auto-show, an occult nightclub, a modern temple. It is an eruption.

Through sculpture and video, Stanislav conjures ancient symbols in fabulist form to reflect on contemporary society's hidden state of turmoil. The two largest pieces are a decapitated horse on a rotating mirrored platform placed across from a mirror inscribed with geometric and astrological symbols scattered into chaos, and a wild cat impaled by an obelisk. Both are massive, and constructed entirely out of glitter and rhinestones. And both showcase mankind's assault on the natural through a culture of excess.

The exhibition is epitomized in a two-monitor video installation, River to Infinity - The Vanishing Points, in the lower level. In it, nine mirrored obelisks stand on a seam in the Utah salt plains. They fade into one another, continuously disappearing and multiplying against the infertile landscape. Then, against a mantric background, they erupt miraculously, over and over in an act of iconoclasm.

Stanislav delves into the a collaged dream space where she gutturally issues a call-to-action. The show's titled draws our attention to the disappearing natural world, and through the cold, glistening facade of the sculptures, the viewer is forced to draw the connection between our world of artifice and himself. The hope is that through shock at the destruction initiated by our obsession with the material, the viewer will rebel against this prison of his own making. Go see this show.

Visas, poetry, Eurovision and UGH

2010-05-27T14:55:00.003-05:00

I've actually managed to connect with a human being at Háskóli Íslands (the University of Iceland). I wrote about 12 people frantically hoping to find someone who could tell me if I've been accepted as soon as a decision is made and this person kindly informed me that yes, she could tell me once all decisions are made. All decisions will be made June 1st. That's in 5 days.

So I'm a little antsy. Doubt doesn't come from a fear that I lack the qualifications - more that maybe they didn't receive my references or test scores or something, since no one seemed able to confirm everything was in the same pile. But also it's more that I'd like to be able to get this all settled soon so I can start RELAXING.

But I also need to take the time out to know that despite all of this nonsense I'm still incredibly priveleged for the work and living conditions I have. A friend of mine is volunteering in Kenya now, and hearing her stories is unbelievable. If you have the means, I strongly recomend that you donate to the charity set up by her family to aid the village she is working in. The proceeds go to any number of necessary projects, from giving scholarships to children so they can attend the Mission school to building greenhouses. Here's the charity's site and you can read my friend's blog right here.

In other news, I just got an email today saying a poem of mine is going to be published in the July issue of the White Whale Review! I'm very happy because I really loved this lil thing, and I don't do poetry often. Anyhow, I'll link to their site once it's out.

Also, I'm in love with Milan Stankovic. There's some good art I want to talk about but don't have the energy. I love Milan Stankovic. I hope he comes out and comes to Iceland.

Hrafnkell Sigurðsson, plus AH HATE VISAS! ah hate visas.

2010-04-20T16:00:00.012-05:00

So visas are like dragons - used to scare off the unworthy. I'm so annoyed going through all of these forms that I can't even fill out until I am accepted, registered and housed - if, that is. One nice thing about school in the US or other large parts of the world is that they have enough people employed and, just, there that it is possible to respond to people promptly. There's very little I can do until I hear more from Háskoli Íslands - except claw at the walls. I'm not having doubts, but what with time catching up with me, I'd appreciate some way to anchor this lil ambition so that it isn't washed away. Plus, BUSES IN ICELAND ARE SO STUPID, IT SEEMS. I would, most hopefully, be taking a 3-week intensive language class in Ísafjörður, in Westfjords, before Uni starts. Look at the map down there. See the collection of frantic peninsulas in the Northwest? Around the middle-north of that is Ísafjörður, which means ice fjord. It has a population of 4,000. And I. CAN'T. GET. TO. IT. The little tourist guides say I can go one way that the bus sites say I can't and AH.

So enough of this. I put that beautiful triptych up top so that you would know I'm talking art down here, too. Enough of my frustration, it is only preliminary. This triptych was made by Hrafnkell Sigurðsson. As you can see, the outside panels are covered in a beautiful, germinating pattern of color reminiscent of baroque excess, opening into a pure, iceberg-ridden body of water. But if you look closely, you notice quickly that the pattern is composed of brightly colored garbage bags and wrappers, and the icebergs bring to mind the deteriorating glaciers.

Hrafnkell explores the changing relationship between mankind and the earth. Through the massive consumptive legacy we build up, he sifts through and isolates images, framing them in religious, formal manners, to draw on our emotional relationships between land and ourselves. He goes beyond simple condemnation of the consumer culture; there is something oddly attractive in this oppressive, orange coating, its ghastly vacancy and textural glow, the grime melting into the shadows, similar even to the human delight in the supernatural. It stares eerily into the picture plane like a ghost. It may even be the hunched back of a man, shrouded in a garbage collector's uniform.

There is still beauty in human excess. It comes from our primal urge to survive, the anagogic striving for happiness and the desire to make life better for ourselves and future generations. In more recent works, conglomerates of trash piled together are floated against near-black backgrounds, similar even to court portraits. The garbage we leave behind is as much of us as the monuments erected to heroes and poets. But his images also evoke how difficult it is for us to acknowledge all of the waste we produce as vile and dangerous. The fundamental problem comes when we refuse to acknowledge the incredible influence the natural world exudes on our lives, and how much we receive from it. Life can be carried on in harmony with nature, and we must see beyond our own needs and desires to take care of the land that sustains us. In medieval altarpieces, the outside images most frequently showed scenes of suffering or of everyday life - that of the divine (most frequently Jesus) and of the people. Held within lay heaven and redemption. The act of opening the altarpiece was then symbolic for transcending the real and significant trials of life, and in doing so striving to experience the divine. The earth is our divinity, and it can still be experienced everyday, as long as we continue to care for it more than ourselves.

The Baltic Court: Zofia Kulik and Olaf Brzeski

2010-04-13T19:13:00.010-05:00

know, I’m an awful blogger. It has been a long, long time since I’ve written. I am most apologetic. I’ve got some awesome stuff to talk about below, but first: the personal update. I now work one of my two free days cataloguing a large private contemporary and modern art collection and sundry other tasks that happen to pop up. So I don’t sleep too much. And I will not hear from the University of Iceland until (I think they said) June 1^st. Blegh. Which means I’m going to begin gathering my visa stuff anyway. BLEGH.

ENOUGH OF THIS.

Because of the Polish people’s recent great tragedy, I will be dedicating this post to some excellent Polish artists I have come across. They’re both actually very highly regarded in the international art world (which I didn’t know, though I’m sure some of you do already), and what particularly interests me in their work is the reinterpretation of classical portraiture and ritual in commemorative objects. The first artist to focus on is Zofia Kulik.

Kulik rose out of the major subversive Eastern European art movement, Soc Art, which dreamt of a true autocratic, socialist state opposed to the tyrannical, authoritarian control they lived under. Such criticism is portrayed in Kulik’s massive, compound portraits where dozens of undulating, anonymous figures are arranged to form the clothing and symbols composing what appears to be a court portrait of Kulik herself, called “The Splendor of Myself.” The makings of social realism are compounded only to glorify the individual.

Kulik’s message travels through art history, wherein figures compose massive, mandala-like patterns reminiscent of Roman mosaics or Baroque ceilings. In other work, Kulik superimposes a swaddled, near starved-looking man onto a socialist emblem. In the piece above, she pairs herself with prominent installation artist, Przemysław Kwiek,wherein they are surrounded with objects of richness and rarity, creativity and technology – but all of the objects presented are wholly one-dimensional, and very crudely layered atop one another, reminiscent of the Soviet ‘movie set’ towns designed to give impressive depictions of communist prosperity to the Western world. Zofia Kulik does not remain wed to politics in her art – the same message of abuse and vanity can be applied to all people, and it mocks anyone who would surround himself with objects in hope of proving his own worth.

Olaf Brzeski, on the other hand, turns his attention to trophies of conquest and institutions of respect, transforming them into monsters and zones of destruction. To a figural bust he gives sharks teeth, and brazenly bares its bosom. Other works in this series features groups of busts collapsed and shattered, with bruises and bandages, flanking a pile of refuse and timber like antiquated guardians. One bust inflates the French court powdered wig into a fungal, biomorphic mass atop the stately woman’s head.

Another series, similar to Kulik in its satire of portraiture, features a huntsman in a nightmarish crocodile mask sneering and stalking lovely woodland creatures. It includes, as well, formal-style militaristic photographs like this, reflecting the gruesome nature of the trophy-holder’s pursuit of his prize.

Brzeski focuses on the darkness of power, as well as the affect it has on the worlds around it. He contorts the sterile and stoic depictions of rulers and the wealthy – artworks recalling the countless oppressive leaderships in Europe – delivering the viewer from their authority and reflecting on the old leading classes’ current state of decimation. In another series, Brzeski films small explosions of black ink and smoke in anonymous chambers of castles, now resigned as tourist destinations. He shatters an empty glass display case on the steps of the National Gallery, and in doing so brings to perspective the oppressive nature of institutions on a young, developing arts community. Brzeski turns the venerable images of strength from the past into things to be feared, which fascinate in their passionate destruction and caricature, but which must be regarded with great suspicion.

Egill Sæbjörnsson and Jason Salavon: Altered Preception

2010-02-27T14:04:00.003-06:00

The trend towards a multimedia approach to art making has been seen for quite a while now that it is fairly trite to say it typifies the contemporary avant-garde. But while many are trying their best at interdisciplinarianism, few really reach beyond skirting the issue completely. Where the movement seeks to break in consistency of form and thereby tie practice only to the subject and focus on the experience of the viewer, a new pattern generally develops - just one of installation, which certainly predates the concept. But there are certainly artists who broach the process with integrity and idiosyncrasy, two such artists being Egill Sæbjörnsson (my computer's all wonky and won't let me type other characters, sorry) and Jason Salavon.

That's a Jason Salavon piece up in the gallery I work at now, and I imagine anyone vaguely familiar with Chicago and/or skylines in general will notice something's up. The major element of most of Salavon's work is how he manipulates still images, in a way that makes them somehow not-still. This is called "City, Westward" and it's just that - many dozens of images of the Chicago Loop, shot from the west. Each image focuses on a specific building, and through software of his own design, he layered and rearranged each image by color, shade, grid work and perspective to form an almost optical illusion of one of the most distinctive urban views in the United States. It reanimates the architectural landscape of a very familiar environment into a lyrical, dream-like view. Viewing the image is like watching a waterfall crash.

He does the same with site-specific and multimedia-integrated projects. The above, "American Varietal (US Population by County, 1790-2000)", integrates and manipulates unbelievable amounts of clinical graphs into a sonorous and majestic mural, reestablishing the humanity of data. Salavon's work embraces the possibility in technology, using it to reevaluate our own means of evaluation, and to twist images and locales that we may take for granted.

Contrarily, Egill Sæbjörnsson maintains a staunch relation to art historical still-life, shyly hinting at new media in a way that causes it to creep up on the viewer. The environments are clear enough - household items arranged in typical, haphazard patterns, seemingly isolated. Over them he projects shifting colors and lights, and in the background sifts computer-arranged musical compositions, and from there these isolated everyday spaces begin to bloom.

Egill's work is concerned with reflecting the moments of the everyday when magic and beauty become possible, how symbolism and emotional connection establish themselves among the banal. Through multicolored plastic laundry buckets comes a golden ring, like a distant sun. Simple objects become jewels, and the atmosphere is thickened and magnified. These creative environments are reminiscent of religious effigies - small, illuminated temples enshrouded in darkness and echoing with music. Egill uses only the most basic of technology - projection machines and speakers - and where Salavon expands the everyday into a wider, consumptive composition Egill intimates it, focusing in on individual moments, small pockets of existence that go otherwise unnoticed. But experiencing Egill's work gives us renewed appreciation for the details of life and the beauty intrinsic in the world.

Egill Sæbjörnsson is represented by i8 Galleri in Reykjavík and has recently shown at the National Gallery of Iceland and at Grusenmeyer Art Gallery in Belgium. Jason Salavon is represented by Tony Wight Gallery in Chicago and is soon to be opening a two-site project at Tony Wight and Donald Young Galleries.

No Museum For You, Nuuk

2010-02-06T14:23:00.004-06:00

A little, sad post:

Looks like Greenlanders will have to wait for their national gallery. Although a competition to design the new building had been in the works and hundreds of thousands of kroner have already been spent, the Greenlandic home-rule government recently voted to suspend funding to the project indefinitely. This comes in the wake of much frustration and fear of economic fallout after the EU passed a ban on seal products, a significant aspect of indigenous hunting practices. Because Greenland severed itself from the European community 25 years ago, it had no say in the legislation.

This is particularly sad to me because through my research, reading and keeping-up-on various Nordic things, I've begun to empathise strongly with the Greenlandic people's struggle for independance and to revive their culture. Surely a museum is a foundational element of a society. It allows the culture to promote its artists on a large-scale and international setting, and in doing so promotes the advancement of art in its communities. Such a presence enables artists to thoroughly examine and interact with the issues facing them, their nation and the world, and in doing so further critical dialogue and thought in the people. A museum would help Greenlanders rediscover what it means to be Greenlandic and to keep their culture progressing into the new century, wholly of its own devices. Just a lil sad.

Greenlandic Art: Identity and Environment

2010-01-07T18:14:00.010-06:00

Despite recent tumult in Iceland, I've still been able to wander in my inter-travels of art and all things Nordic. Recently, that has taken me to one place often ignored and belittled by the rest of the Norse world: Greenland.

And it seems fitting that amid Iceland's conflict more fervor is rising all over Northern Europe. Recent statements from the Greenlandic foreign minister at the botched Copenhagen summit on climate change suggest the nation may push for increased sovereignty (I'm finding as I tell this to people that many are unaware that Greenland, although it maintains a home rule government, is still a Danish dependency). But whatever the future holds for this fairly large but quiet corner of the world, it cannot be doubted that the richness and uniqueness of its heritage - Scandinavian and Inuit - combined with its long-held isolation have birthed artists with profound conflict of national identity. And the passion and life force contained in art are certainly often birthed from conflict.

One such artists is Julie Edel Hardenberg (first three images) whose subject matter targets head on issues of Greenlandic identity and nationalism. The national costume - which is traditionally beaded and sewed entirely by hand - so prized for its symbolism in the Greenlandic culture she turns into a prison, causing revolt from the interior, thereby questioning the benefits of the society's staunch isolationism. She turns a mirror on the shambled urban development of the capitol against austere natural environments, and presents Greenlandic immigrants with the flags and names of their adopted homelands in an honest, photographic style.

But just as she holds Greenland to itself she raises it up, whether in a massive mural of the Greenlandic flag at the back of an apartment high-rise or in pastoral images of sheep against the rugged, rocky landscape, exhibited in public spaces (the cafeteria of the Nuuk Cultural Center) to enable all to relate to her images. But whether critical in the wake of change or clinging to what is completely Greenlandic, Julie Edel is beholden to her subjects. They consume the frame and channel their conflict directly. It is this honesty and assertiveness that both typifies her work and holds hope for the progress of her nation.

Another artist evoking different views of his environment is Miki Jacobsen (last two images). While Julie Edel's images are stylistically pure and formal, but absolutely no less for it, Miki takes full advantage of contemporary developments in digital technology to draw contrast. He seamlessly draws two, sometimes three or four images together, and in doing so creates both spiritual repetition and great humor. In the image above, he echoes Greenlandic spirituality and its ties to the earth by a shamanistic spiral in the glaciers, warping sky and an Inuit carving, relating Greenland's culture back into the earth.

But just as Greenlanders (and all of us!) are beholden to the earth, so we must still see the natural humor and brightness in it to experience it completely. "The Thinker" pose is so often a platform for parody, and here it is brought to into Greenlandic context. Is the almost pedagogic tie to the earth and largely-held rejection of much of the modern world really such a bright idea? Whatever the message or media, these two artists' questions of identity can be transferred to us all. Do we view our own cultures with as much pride or scepticism as these folk? Should we? And how does our connection to the earth relate to Greenlanders? Beyond the guise of 'primitives' that causes much of the Nordic sphere shun the brother to the west, Greenlanders have an honest and significant contribution to world culture, and an understanding of the burden of maintaining cultural integrity in a world where it is handed away so carelessly, if it even exists anymore.

On Icesave

2010-01-07T10:09:00.011-06:00

I know I am inviting trouble, but the time has come.

Let me preface this by acknowledging that I am by no means an expert and claim no special guise of knowledge. That's something I can't stand in most political blogs, political conversations, political people. A large reason why I'm not political. But I feel I must put my opinion in on this issue. But I will definitely keep art relevant (see the last few paragraphs). But then art is always relevant because art is essentially a moment of life frozen, and more recently, living in a conveniently confined space.

Those following the Icesave dispute surely know by now that President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson has vetoed the most recent Icesave bill and it will be up for referendum in the coming months. This does not mean Iceland refuses to pay back the debt owed to British and Dutch investors, as per Icelandic law, the current bill will go into effect until and if it is defeated in referendum, and even if it is indeed defeated, the previous Icesave bill signed by Grímsson in September will then go into effect - two facts foreign media have largely been excluding. And indeed the question of the referendum cannot be as clearly predicted as previously thought. A new pole from Vísir suggests the public is roughly divided half in favor of Grímsson's decision to veto the bill, half not.

Now that that's through: it stands to reason for the people of this small country to shoulder debt equivalent to about $18,000 US per person (as a really excellent opinion piece from The Independent says) with the steep interest rate of 5.5% as the current bill would deem it for the greedy, reckless and negligent actions of a few private companies as well as a previous Icelandic government and UK and Dutch regulators, these foreign states should be pleased with any deal. Because indeed the UK and Dutch ignored the warnings of these companies as much as Icelanders, as well as investors. The Independent's article claims that the vigilante action of placing Iceland under anti-terrorist blockage may have been an act to swiftly shift blame wholly onto Iceland and keep the public from turning their eye on their own government's fault.

Indeed Icelanders will likely be chained to the UK and Dutch in the coming years, but hopefully under less strenuous conditions. For the eyes of the international community are beginning to turn on the United Kingdom now, too, and their neo-imperialistic acts against a country already so blighted and weakened. As Latvian Foreign Minister, Maris Riekstins, suggests, “Are these reactions coming just because Iceland is a small nation? It is difficult to imagine these same countries would have acted the way they have against the French President [for example].”

(Art Relevance Starts Here)

What is particularly interesting to me is to consider how the art world will continue despite these most tumultuous political times. Indeed the strain of the political atmosphere can be seen in many artists' recent work, including that of Anna Líndal and Ásmundur Ásmundsson. And certainly Icelandic museums have had to cancel or delay exhibitions due to budgetary constraints, as can be seen in even the most prestigious international institutions.

But there are just as many beacons of hope in the Icelandic art world as blights. The infamous Icelandic Airwaves music festival sold out faster than ever before this year. Kristján Guðmundsson's Carnegie award-winning exhibit is coming to Reykjavík. There are hopes that the Nordic Fashion Biennale, which was launched last year, will continue. And artists still make art, which means life still goes on. It is my opinion that art will continue to pull this most resilient people up and enliven the world, to challenge the most conservative minds and awaken experience.

To finish, I am currently obsessed with Lady Gaga's Bad Romance and have no idea how to put a video on here. So go listen to it and remember that everything is ephemeral.

Elín Hansdóttir (Icelandic Art), Justin Cooper (American Art) and ICESAVE?

2009-12-30T22:21:00.013-06:00

I have bundles of goodies to share with you special people. I think I'll start out with clarity and end up in craziness. So, first off...

Not-Angry Section of Entry:

...there's a really excellent show that's about to open at i8 Gallery in Reykjavík, arguably the Icelandic gallery making the biggest echo internationally. Elín Hansdóttir's work explores the abstract in the everyday. Her work is entirely site-specific, and those remain the only constants. The basic principal of abstraction is it draws the viewer both entirely outward, the eye and mind working themselves around the shapes, then the effect transfers itself inward, the shapes and shades playing with the mind to form a sort of mandalla. What is unique about Elín's work is it takes this principal that is most often confined to the 'old' media - painting and sculpture - and applies it to complete, self-contained environments.

The space then becomes a transported atmosphere that tricks itself and the viewer. It is completely dependent on the existence of the viewer in that its art-matter is the experience. Whether composed of dark, labyrinthine halls whose shadows create their own entrances and block exits in their surreal optics or motion-detecting and time-specific operatives that intrude upon the environment, Elín's works detach themselves from the spaces of the outside world and change the way we relate to our constructed environs.

There's also a really great show that'll be opening in about a month at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago called Production Site: The Artist's Studio Inside-Out which will be featuring the whimsical Justin Cooper, who's also with Monique Meloche Gallery. Essentially, his work seeks to capture the moment at which chaos occurs, when harmonious real-life situations and emotions go array. Through video, photography, performance and installation alike, he constructs playful characters, struggling in their confusion to realign themselves - which ultimately is futile. He also was a part of the Here/Not There performance series at the MCA and plenty of exceptional international festivals. Take a look at some of his stuff here.

Moving onto personal matters:

I finally was connected to the University of Iceland and was told that I will find out on acceptance by June 1st. Hurray. I think what I'll have to do is find out when the deadline to accept at the University of Glasgow is, and if that could be overridden should I choose to go to Iceland instead.

And, I no longer work at Macy's! And work nearly full-time at the gallery. Which are both good. There are so many crazy people who shop. I've also just recently started another story. Finally. I have 2.5 paragraphs. Which is cause for celebration.

AND, I would really like to thank Anna Jóelsdóttir for linking my blog to her site! I greatly look forward to reviewing your future work, as well. And thanks be to you, readers! I shall have to explore the blogosphere a bit more myself when I'm not dying of tired.

NOW, the good stuff:

ICESAVE. What in the world. According to IceNews:

"Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, Chairman of the Progressive Party, said that the letter from the solicitors office came forward to Össur Skarphéðinsson, the Foreign Minister, in a special presentation of a report that Mishcon de Reya put together last spring. It has, however, been observed that certain information seems to have been removed from the presentation package by Svavar Gestsson, Chairman of the Icelandic negotiating committee, not wanting it to follow in the package to the foreign minister.

The information allegedly suppressed was Mischon de Reya’s evaluation of proceedings against the British Financial Supervisory Authority that may strengthen the position of Iceland in talks about the Icesave-issue.

"I think it is safe to say that any European government, proven guilty of hiding such information, after having been repeatedly asked if all available and relevant information was on the table would not be allowed to remain in control of parliament" said Sigmundur Davíð.

Össur Skarphéðinsson, the Foreign Minister, said it was unfortunate that this information has been presented so late in the review of the case and that it is understandable that the opposition MPs need time to review it.

Össur said he had not seen this information before, but that he had glanced it over that evening, both the letter from Mishcon de Reya and the additional information that according to Mischon de Reyja should have been presented to Össur in London on the 31st March but was not.

In one section of the presentation there are speculations of certain possibilities that the Icelandic government might have the use of the Terrorist Act in its defence against Britain. Össur said that this section dealt primarily with the opportunity of taking the matter to the European Human Rights Court."

I know, I just copied that from the site. Are these people in toyland or something? The Icesave agreement has since passed the Alþingi, and at the very least it means tensions will begin to ease in the international precept ion of Iceland and hopefully some change will speed up. Hmph.

Songs from the Cold Seas, and Photos

2009-12-07T08:26:00.010-06:00

In the spirit of a healthy, contemporary, trans-media approach to art, I bring you my review of the album "Chansons des Mers Froides" (Songs from the Cold Seas), arranged by Hector Zazou, and a few new fashion-y photos, as well.
The collection is most unique in that it approaches 'world music' - a mix of ceremonial, traditional and folk music from the strange and exotic parts of the world - with the Arctic in mind. It includes pieces from as far as Hokkaidō, the far northern island of Japan, and Yakutia in extreme, Asian Siberia, along with some (vaguely) more familiar places like Newfoundland and Iceland. It brings together thriving, cherished history and dying cultures with languages being lost to time. But it goes beyond the New Age-y, pedagogic exploration of "indigenous people"; Hector Zazou has fused these hoary songs with an astonishing range of instrumentals and back-ups, with low, spiritual mantras and electronics floating on the undercurrents of a song sung by major British rock singer Siouxsie. The result is a modern creation, a revival of mournful songs of the North that fits with the spirit of the most experimental music.

What is particularly unique about these songs is their dissension from mainstream, Western ideas of tone and pitch. Now, I'm hardly one to make such technical-sounding judgments as I know next to nothing about music, but the shrill, shepherdess whiplash of Lena Willemark's voice traveling through the fjords at the end of "Havet Stomar" is far from anything heard in trendy French country music. The limacine, unearthly sound is as chilling as the land it evokes.

The same is true in "Yakut Song" sung by Lioudmila Khandi (which can be heard here, beside some very tragic images of a Czech flood, for some reason; skip to about 30 seconds if you only want to hear the music). But here we are introduced to an even more provocative and uniquely Arctic sound: the transmundane and impossible-sounding throat singing. The leaps and bounds of Khandi's vocals are beyond understanding. She seems to be bellowing through time, reaching from somewhere prehistoric. This is one of the most beautiful, staggering and emotional songs I have ever listened to.

Another of the all highly unique songs on this album is "Yaisa Maneena" sung by Tokiko Kato, from the Ainu culture of indigenous Japan. I was rather confused upon hearing it at first; the accent and many of the vowels sounded distinctly Asian, but the prevalence of the hard k made it appear awfully Inuit. The Ainu are among the most endangered cultures in the world, largely due to abandonment of cultural identity from the pressures of contemporary Japanese culture.

But beyond this unusual background, the song expresses a whole different type of sorrow than the rest of the tracks on this album. The vocals are low and still, humming at points, and backed by a resounding stomping electronic sludge towards the end, contrasting this very reticent and bare song.

I will only talk about one more that particularly moved me.

As I'm sure you can determine, I have a soft spot for the Nordic countries. There is an Icelandic song on this album, "Vísur Vatnsenda-Rósu," sung by Björk, the melody arranged by the wizard of contemporary sound befitting ancient melodies, Jón Ásgeirsson. It is a traditional lullaby (one Björk also used on her Possibly, Maybe soundtrack and I believe borrowed heavily from for a particular song on Medulla), soft, as you can imagine. But that is not what I want to talk about.

"Annukka Suaren Neito," sung by Värttinä, is full of strength and conflict, as well as great legend (you can hear it here without images of a Czech flood). The song recalls a Finnish folk tale about a young princess who called to the sea for a husband. When one finally arrived, he lulled her, swore himself to her, only to swallow her up into the waves. Värttinä is a well-known Finnish folk band, made up of three very Nordic women. The ardent, taut melody marked with repetition greatly evoke the steadfastness and stability of the Nordic cultures.

Gabríela Friðriksdóttir and Brynhildur Þorgeirsdóttir: The New Environmental Art

2009-11-29T16:10:00.006-06:00

In all Icelandic art, the influence of nature is wholly palpable and exalted for the undeniable force that it is. This is certainly true of life all over the world, but in Iceland, a place still so connected to the earth with filled with examples and great understanding of nature's power, the influence is not represented naively or with a trendy, bohemian flair as much environmental art of the last century has. Artists like Gabríela Friðriksdóttir and Brynhildur Þorgeirsdóttir instead try to replicate the psychological experience we have with nature and to evoke the many ways it manifests itself in the world on the level of human emotions and perceptions.

Gabríela (first three images) confronts us with the hideousness of the earth (some may be familiar with her work for Björk's "Family Tree" album). Whether as a bloated, bandaged hand or a volcanic mask consuming the face of a human subject, her pieces challenge modern society's desire to turn nature into the other, something given artificial respect but defined as completely separate. In turn, Gabríela reflects nature in the cherished image that is otherwise considered its antithesis: man. These troll-like figures are both nature embodied and man unmasked. The forms are gruesome and primal, but also certainly human in shape and manner. The recall the denied natural self, contrary to the current environmentalist image of man as the all-knowing protector of nature.

But their ugliness seen by a conservative eye is eclipsed by their sheer power and certainty. These figures stare directly into the camera with wide-eyed, titanic authority. They reestablish a world where man understands his vulnerability to nature, and is thereby reunited with it, a true part of nature, not enclosed in a capsule trying to escape it.

But to read Gabríela's work solely on the natural level would be far too narrow. They challenge not only man's isolation from nature but his conceived superiority to the world at large. Beneath the artifice of man is a strident, earthly being, one that does not take part in his cultivated rituals but is driven by core desires and needs. These images demand recognition by their well-heeled viewers, and call them like a hunting horn back to the earth.

The other perspective I want to discuss is on the physical level much more similar to the environmental art post-modern art history aficionados are likely familiar with (I'm sure we can all remember those big stone spirals, right? Right?). But instead of Mr. Smithson's creations calling idealistically to the prehistoric mammoths of the world, Brynhildur chooses to show the strength and stability of nature as it is, but still in art-object form. Her sculptures are bare, honest, withstanding. They embody strength and are clearly the images they represent, whether they be mountains, volcanoes, sheets of ice or any of the other wonders that cover Iceland.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I was accepted to the University of Glasgow! And have not heard back from the University of Iceland yet. So we'll see what happens there.

And I'm working at Macy's now, which is why this post took so long to be put up. It's a pain, but hey. And it looks like my boss at the art gallery may consider taking me on as a paid assistant!

Plus, I've placed another piece at the spectacular Sein und Werden! It will be appearing in the awesome journal of surrealism and expressionism in December or January. Please take a look, and thanks very much to Rachel!

And thanks to you, my oh-so-wonderful readers. I know you exist. I do.

Carrie Schneider: Queen of This Island

2009-11-10T14:55:00.009-06:00

One of the best things about my internship is how much great art I'm being exposed to. I've never held much of an opinion on photography for a while, but Carrie Schneider's work really makes me think twice and turn around to see how depicted images echo back.

Her work contains a reverence for nature and a prominent rejection of the consumerist present conditions. Pieces such as "Queen of This Island (Ice Queen)", "WE (Baltic Version" and "Queen of This Island (Suomenlinna)" (first three images) channel nature into an empress of forms. She wears crowns of precious textiles and poses, proud. She stands surrounded by the regalia of her domain. Carrie Schneider's images reject the most typical photographs of man in nature - her subjects are completely enmeshed in the environment. Though we know them to be humans in costume, they do not retain the myth of Western society being either removed from nature or existing alongside it or acting as the benevolent caretaker. These women are birthed from nature; they are both the elements they wear or exist around and human.

It is important to note that although the main displayed medium of Carrie Schneider's work is photography she is as much a sculptor. Though the headdresses here are not the most typical of her work, they exist in their own right as works of art. In this we, she is similar to the women of the Icelandic Love Corporation - if only a bit more focused. But she is not a costumer; the associations of photography - depicting the truth, reflecting life as it is - are still present. But her work evokes side of nature eclipsed by other natural images that clearly place man as either the civilized onlooker trying to claim a vastness he can never be equal to or the rebel retreating into the wild. Carrie Schneider's works of this nature ask us to consider our real origins, reminding us that we all arose from the primordial lake and were once, and still are, at the mercy of the natural world.

But it would be impossible for an artist to ignore the inorganic growth of the world in favor of only the natural. Her most recent pieces (such as "Recession", above) reenter the commercial world exhausted and removed, her subjects shaken from the empowered, lively roles they held in the natural world and are reduced to being objects that fall into the artifice around them, helpless. There is a stark contrast between these two sets of images. They reflect back how we relate to all sides of the world we live in, not merely how we see them. Her work is currently on view as part of a group show at Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago, the Finish Museum of Photography in Helsinki and Galleri KiT in Trondheim.

Samhaintide, the Gloom Cupboard and ditch,

2009-11-01T13:35:00.006-06:00

Bundles of happy news in the new year, but coming in a smaller post.

I don't believe I've mentioned my 'religious' beliefs in the past, but I follow what I would define as Pagan beliefs built on a personal connection to the earth. I don't believe in a pantheon of rusty, stone-carved gods and goddesses like some Neopagans do, but see divinity as the immense life force that creates, nourishes and surrounds us all.
As such, it is important to recognize the changing of times in the year, and in accordance with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, the turn towards winter.
I don't want to make this a religious blog; I just hope this may encourage you to take a long walk alone in a natural place and really allow yourself to experience it.

But other than that, I have published my first work.
My favorite story thus far has been adopted by Gloom Cupboard, a lovely little UK-based magazine, under fiction, then click 'Read Full Post' under Prose # 109 and mine is the one called "Greenhouse."

A couple of poems have been placed at ditch, a Canadian poetry magazine, down under 'International Features.' While I definitely don't consider poetry my strong suit, I'm still very pleased.

I thank the editors of these magazines for considering my work. It makes me want to get back to writing some more, if for no other reason than I have less to submit, and therefore cannot feign productivity much longer.

Also: go read the Rilke excerpts in the latest Paris Review.

Icelandic Love Corporation, Work og Work

2009-10-25T15:17:00.005-05:00

So, I've gone a little while without a personal update. But I’ll let that come after Icelandic Love Corporation. Look for it in the “IN OTHER NEWS.”

For now, let’s focus on that black swan up there, which you can see at the gallery Kling og Bang in Reykjavík. Or maybe not, since Kling og Bang’s website doesn’t allow me to read too much into it, other than:

“A black swan is a metaphor for events that are unexpected. These events are high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare. Afterwards it seems that they could perhaps have been predicted. It is a question of reading into the signs around us, such as when the house cat licks itself and kicks its hind leg into the air. Then you can expect a visitor.”

You don’t have to go too far in reading this single work to know what it relates too. The effects of the financial crisis can be seen everywhere in Iceland – but considering the exhibit features an animated film alongside this portentous sculpture and surely others, it seems the ladies of the Icelandic Love Corporation have not lost their carefully-pinned humor.

So I’ll let you in on them a little bit more since I (sadly) cannot be in Iceland to see this.

The Corp. is made up of three artists - Eirún Sigurðardóttir , Jóní Jónsdóttir og Sigrún Hrólfsdóttir – who fill the void of strong, feminine perspectives in the Icelandic arts scene (but then Germaine Greer might lop my head off for that). They perform, they sculpt, they film and they install, whatever is most necessary to conveying their artistic messages – and isn’t that really where the future of art lies?

They’re known for targeted and satirized social criticism, dissecting areas from women’s roles to the predatory nature of corporate honchos. But one of my favorite shows, “Places of Worship” (2001), asks us to consider the things that make up ritual and sacred space, and to what degree those actually relate to spirituality.

“Without You” (above) consists of a haphazard coffin, clumsily placed on construction-like stilts, but the structure of which is painted pure white, as if the coffin is a human means of pacifying death by concealing its truth. This certainly shows little concern for the comfort and respect of the dead. Inside, where a body should lie, are placed many mirrors facing outwards at the viewer. They reflect not death as it is but ourselves – creatures of vanity and will who so vapidly admire ourselves that we feel all others (alive and dead) must reflect us. But it also calls upon our own mortality, showing that we will all be the corpses we hide in boxes some day.

“Magic,” on the other hand, calls for our humanity to rise out of the vanity in superfluous religious ornamentation. From white silk gloves spring small hands that embrace one another. Beneath the illustrious and physical comes something natural, that is to say, through the decoration and ritual of religion we reflect a desire to express our emotional truth and to form connections to other humans, to ourselves and to the world around us. It is the natural that is divine, but in ritualizing we reflect our humanity, and all physical places of worship are chapels to the cathedral of the human.

“Unreal reality

Possesses magical sensitivity.

Each finger is a hand

And on that hand each finger

Is another hand.

As things grow smaller and smaller

They also grow bigger and bigger.”

(from the text of “Places of Worship”)

IN OTHER NEWS:

In the last week, I started work, got an internship, published a few poems, got the CD for my "Teach Yourself Icelandic" book and put off seeing the Liam Gillick show because I am so tired. I'd say it's about time for a personal update.

Work: coral farm. As in the stuff under the sea. We farm it. Responsibilities: sweep, clean, move heavy things, laundry, grunt, help the contractor build things out of wood, not exist when my bosses are walking around together and pointing at things.

Basically, it's just manual labor, which is fine, since I'm being paid more than I would if I worked at Starbuck's. What's a little annoying is that my bosses will talk to everyone else working there and laugh with them but not even say 'hello' to me. But then I also took this over working in a restaurant because it means I don't have to deal with people much. My hands are like washer maids'.

The internship has to be the most exciting thing in this. A while ago, I sent my resume out to a bunch of galleries and organizations, hoping they'd keep it on file. Well, a very lovely gallery owner in Glencoe responded! Now, even though it's in the suburbs, she shows really great work there. It serves as a sort-of interstice between the best downtown galleries in the West Loop and River North and Northshore rich people. I start on Monday and hope to have some very exciting stories.

Poems. They're on http://www.ditchpoetry.com/, a Canadian online literary journal. It's pretty decent. I'm not the happiest with my stuff, but my poems "To Iceland" and "Shrunken Heads" I like a lot, still. What's upsetting is, like an idiot, I made some revisions to the both after I submitted them. So they're better on my desktop, but hey. I've also written about a page and half in my current piece...since I started it a month ago.

Icelandic is so fun. I only just received the CD yesterday so I just went through to make sure I've got the pronunciations down right, the alphabet, and a couple of conjugations. But, oh my, I hate declension. That's when nouns take on different forms for their place in the sentence. This really only occurs with pronouns in English. Egh.

Wim Delvoye and Jóhanna, or "Do People Read Art Blogs?"

2009-10-08T19:44:00.012-05:00

Guess not. Maybe post a friendly comment if you exist? Now, onto more important things:

CLOACA.

I know, it's not exactly 'new,' but I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't point all of my ghost friends reading this towards Wim Delvoye ASAP.

Sitting smugly above haughty crowds clamoring from Europe, Asia and the Middle East is the man Wim Delvoye made. Cloaca is a large-scale conceptual sculpture that replicates to scientific exactness the process of the human digestive system, creating possibly Delvoye’s most telling and terrifying paradox.

Through varied experimentation, it has taken many forms – from a fairly humble set of glass jars, tubes and instruments; to a sprawling factory enclosed in glass; to a towering monolith, decked in visual collage reminiscent of Louise Nevelson’s cathedrals. But whatever the incarnation, these creations have the makings of the ‘machine man’ and all his mirrored humor and portentous horror.

The theme of excrement art is repetitious enough that it does not need to be explained. However, trite as it may appear, this way of constructing it holds half the appeal; what do men make? Shit. But this is art, right? Did not man make this art? What do men make? Shit. It’s the both self and universally mocking on Delvoye’s part, a punch that echoes Duchamp’s notorious Fountain. But it is the undercurrent of Cloaca beneath the sloshing and hissing that shows its most grave revelation.

In this age of technology, we have gotten used to machines that do our bidding. But one that recreates our own actions? Cloaca presents a picture of utopianism, a world scientifically exact but ‘full of shit,’ in which the role of man has been reduced to producing excrement. And despite its apparent rejection of visual aesthetics, elements of each variation certainly help to elaborate on this new man. He is algorithmic, in the case of the 2000-03 models, moving from stage to stage in apparent progression only to come to the end result and go right back to make more. He is also completely transparent in these, the whole process of his function being revealed to all. In Cloaca Nr5, which we see above, he is jumbled, mostly, the clearest part of him being a large, phallic conveyor belt at the end. And in Super Cloaca, he is even more threatening – a massive tunnel like the cells of nuclear weaponry, whose procedures are now hidden to the viewer.

Cloaca indeed evolves beyond merely doing what humans do and showing us the futility and technical simplicity of us to become a power that threatens to remove us, a machine that would turn the whole world to ‘shit.’

IN OTHER NEWS:

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the PM of Iceland and leader of the Left Greens, FINALLY spoke out against damn Gordon Brown's hostile and neo-imperialistic reaction to the fall of Icelandic bank Landbanki's UK and Dutch online branch, Icesave. For those just joining us now, after the bank's collapse and subsequent freezing of assets for Icesave, Mr. Brown enacted an anti-terrorist law that virtually cut off Iceland to the world financial sector until he brought the country to its knees. She made sure not to be confrontational or hyperbolic (and reiterated that fault mostly did lie in Icelandic corporate greed and the previous government's failure to regulate the banks, even though cutting them off certainly didn't help and could very easily be linked as the inciting breaking point for the bank Glitnir), but very clearly reflected the understandable discontent and weariness of her people.

On a happier note, Yoko Ono is offering a free ferry trip to Viðey island for the lighting of her work Imagine Peace Tower and to commemorate John Lennon.

Maybe I'll send her an email asking if she could cover my airfare too. Maybe not.

Momentum - Favoured Nations, or "A Biennial Grows in Moss"

2009-10-05T17:01:00.007-05:00

Hurray! The Momentum 2009 - Favoured Nations Nordic biennial in Moss, Norway reviews are up! Sadly, I am still unable to travel to Norway to see the works for myself so you'll have to deal with my interpretations of the readings from the Momentum website, List: Icelandic Art News, several artists' websites and my own beliefs from seeing some of these images.

I'll just highlight a few that I think are particularly noteworthy (and some of my favorites), even though I have to say I didn't read the whole 130-whatever page leaflet for the thing.

Up above is one of the most critically-acclaimed works in the show, Hole, by Icelandic artist Ásmundur Ásmundsson. It consists of a large piece of cement that was poured into a hole dug by Moss schoolchildren, then dug up, and it will ultimately be sent back at the end of the show. Accompanying it is a documentary film following its birth. It is largely political (which can be understood considering Iceland's state), criticizing the Icelandic government - and essentially the large-scale governments and economies it in some ways tried to assimilate into - for investing in the physical and brutish - ie, cement (which can be taken both literally or philosophically) - and forcing the youth to bear the brunt of it, build it, a hulking mess of a society built around futility, that is to say, digging a hole, creating it, taking it out, putting it back. This critique extends into Ásmundsson's actions, as well - a stammering, wayward speech given at the biennial's opening - claiming Iceland, other than 'cement,' only invested in language.

The whole gesture reflects a tortured, oppressive religious action like Sisyphus as a critique of how Icelandic politicians have moved the country, coupled with solely materialistic resulting form that isolates viewers from relating to it, much like the nation's obsession with language preservation.

His third piece, Into the Firmament, is much more broadly - and perhaps cite-specifically - critical. It consists of stacked gasoline cans with cement poured over them facing Oslo, reflecting champagne tower metaphor, with success theoretically trickling down to all. To anyone who owns a car and fills the tank up every week, especially in Europe, this paradox should not need explanation. Instead of allowing something sweet to flow through into the soil, the cement hardens and freezes where it is at, that is to say, no distribution of wealth and no moral gains.

But one might not want to be too staunch of criticizing Norway's oil wealth, not when major parties are considering lending Iceland a very, very substantial loan based on the two countries' historic 'friendship.'

The next artist I'll be reviewing is Liv Bugge, a Norwegian artist working in the video medium (which is unfortunately why I can't post a picture of her work). Her films in general, including the ones at Moss, deal with a spiritual, dream-like connection extended to the viewer, like experiencing a growing lichen, perhaps.

The one that seems to sum up her three works, however, (and the one Momentum does have some photos of) is Exterminate all the brutes (2009). It depicts the Royal Museum of Central Africa near Brussels which contains the largest collection of Central African artifacts. The main images show expansive trophy rooms, holding an innate carriage of death, withstanding years of renewal and lingering in the mindset of viewers, evoking the stilled horrors of war and the omnipresence of death. Objects, images maintain these qualities and project them to viewers, creating a magical experience. These and Bugge's two other films erect death as both a cultural & historic presence, as well as a natural one that is beyond our control or understanding.

This corresponds with Hyperborean-room ballads (2008), in which a Congolese animal interpreter conducts a seance to contact Bugge's father and his guide dog. This echoes both racial tensions (the Hyberboreans being a mythical race who lived in glorious sunshine at the North Pole, and as they went South the world grew darker. This was a myth used to bolster much racist ideology in Europe) and the deeper connection to death and spirituality, the search for one bringing the other closer, awareness from pursuit bringing one closer to death. Bugge's third film, We had no road (2008), is inspired by a Nietzsche poem reflecting on coming upon a hunter in the woods and fainting, the hunter then becoming a god-figure.

Even though it's a little cliche, I am really attracted to the pagan connection in Scandinavian art and culture. This connects, a bit, to one perhaps-not-the-most-outstanding-but-still-lovely-and-noteworthy artist at the show, Mats Adelman, from Sweden.

Superficially, some of his work relates to Scandinavian folk carvings, but seen with his videos - short, hazy and muted with a great sense of immanence and the clandestine - they recall appreciation of not knowing in nature, the spiritual and the occult of it.

God, I want to be there.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I'm reading Nicolas Bourriaud's "Relational Aesthetics" now to get tuned-up for the Liam Gillick show (one week!), so I apologize for my relational-speak, if you caught any of that.

Still putting off reviewing the films I saw.

Kling og Bang is friends with me on Facebook!

Tra-la-la.

Read the Momentum catalogue, yourself, right here!

Vanity

2009-10-04T13:30:00.006-05:00

So, I was going to review some of my favorite works in Momentum, a Nordic visual arts biennale in Moss, Norway or a couple of excellent Scandinavian films (three guesses at one of the directors...). But then I remembered I went on another lovely little photo study this past week.

I'm going to have to really learn how to pose for pictures so that my outfits' details show.

I love this vintage Persian lamb cape I got on eBay. I had to gauge out the rhinestones set in the bakelite clasp, though.

I know how to pose. And again, have to take clear pictures of clothes. I love the big, lofty collar on this jacket (second-hand Viktor & Rolf, y'all).

Now, here you can sort-of tell the details in the Hussein Chalayan jacket that I LOVE. It has all of these off, acute angles, and on the sides and back has these loose, thin straps that make it look like a machine.

Tree spirit.

Real writing to come soon!

"You mean Icelanders aren't all fishermen?", plus Balenciaga

2009-10-01T13:01:00.008-05:00

Careful, the rare politico-rant is coming after this picture. In the meantime, try to figure out what's so innovative about it:

Now, watch this video from Saturday Night Live a couple of weeks ago and try to think about it from an Icelander's perspective.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/56633/saturday-night-live-update-bjork

I did think it was really funny when I first saw it, and I still do. Probably many Icelanders would have thought the same a while ago since the culture has a remarkable sense of humor that's often self-deprecating.

But it isn't funny is when that is the only variety of sound blip your country gets on the international screen. Seemingly respectable foreign news outlets seem to be under the delusion that Icelanders before the economic crisis walked around with video-programmed lives flashing in their naive minds with images of elves, and that the bank failures and government fraud shocked them into reality. From 60 Minutes saying all professionals in the country are really just fishermen who love nothing more than off-roading, to the Telegraph reducing months of protest to focus in on "one of Iceland's many self-proclaimed witches," the world seems to forget the country's 99.9% literacy rate and almost complete use of renewable energy.

Iceland still is one of the most developed nations in the world. From the people's standpoint, they are not at fault for being silly (or "crazy" as 60 Minutes would have it) in their financial dealings. They are at fault for their historically valued trust and beliefs in personal responsibility and honesty to the point that they failed to see these individuals corrupting and this fraud going on under their noses. However it was these individuals, these bankers and politicians, who kept their dealings non-transparent.

And where does PM Brown get off on thinking enacting anti-terrorist laws to protect only UK investors, thereby keeping Iceland from receiving emergency aid and connections to the outside economy when they would have been most crucial and forcing the country to take out massive UK loans, with the Icesave nonsense is a bragging point?

I'm off my soapbox now.

In other news...

What's with people fawning over Balenciaga? I swear, this and his show two seasons ago are just recycled Courreges mod-wear that people seem to have forgotten and that actresses have never seen. This time he's branched out to draw from Hussein Chalayan's futurism-sportswear looks. What's next?

I get the working unusual, technological materials of the future that translate into real clothes bit, but what is this collection saying? It's a line of shift dresses, shift tops and various forms of repetitious rectangles, sometimes with the same pair of jeans with (really cool) leather pockets. I did appreciate the Paris-meets-harem-in-the-80s bit he did last season since some of it was genuinely pretty and thoughtful while surrounded by so many dark faces. But I've said it before and I'll say it again, Ghesquiere is no longer concerned with being wholly inventive in his clothes and in the Balenciaga brand.

Distraction

2009-09-29T13:47:00.007-05:00

In a desire to get that thing in yesterday's post below the top of the page, I decided I'd upload some pictures a friend of mine took over the summer. I still don't know how to work a camera to get images off of it and onto this. Not my most exciting outfit, but really lovely shots, I think.

Did I ever tell you I had an obsession with Kenya at one point? And that at the beginning of last year I started filling out an application to the University of Nairobi? That kind of sandbarred when I realized they hadn't updated the print-out for a few years and no where on the site did they list the application fees. Well, darn.

One thing I love is that these make me look sort-of taller. Well, some of them. One quirk I neglected to mention is that since I'm so short and thin, men's clothes don't fit me. My only options are then women's or children's. What do you think I choose?

It's actually not that bad. I just have to get a few things tailored. Can YOU spot which way this jacket should be buttoned for a man?

Keep Your Eyes On the Milk, and other news

2009-09-28T11:00:00.007-05:00

I bet you're wondering what THAT is. No, not some up-and-coming conceptual art. I know you were thinking it. I warn, this might not be for the queasy or rigid-minded.

This is called a tilberi and it was (apparently...) one of the most common charms used by everyday people in medieval Iceland. It has a pretty horrifying and complex method of production...

According to Galdrasýning á Ströndum Þjóðfræðistofan - the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft (god I'm making myself sound crazier by the line - and I sent the link to this blog to one or two prospective employers!) - a woman would have to go to a graveyard on Sunday, dig up a human rib, wrap it in a piece of wool, hide it between her breasts for three weeks so that it could have three masses said over it, then spit the holy wine from each of those masses into it.

After that it would come alive and carve a nipple in her thigh to feed off of. That's great. You think, 'I'll just make this thing to help me out,' and it turns out to be the feral form of a CHILD.

You know what the purpose of this thing was, this thing that you put between your breasts and that gives you a third nipple? To steal milk from your neighbors.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I saw 'Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind' at the Neo-Futurists last night, and I must say, if you haven't, DO.

They are beautiful people. The show is made up of 30 short plays over the course of 60 minutes. It's interactive, it's often humorous or satirical, it's sometimes touching, and it's always different. At the end they have an audience member roll a large, rubbery die and that determines how many new plays they will create. My friendly guide friend, Sam, whose sister is one of the Neo-Futurists, assures me that they do, indeed, create new plays every week.

My favorite was either 'okay, so what about sexualized health care?' or 'How the drunken video gamers from my apartment the other night might stage the climax of William Shakespeare's Hamlet.'

They do 'Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind' every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Come early for the first two, I'm told, as there tend to be lines around the block. As for admission, they take one die, have you roll it, then add that number to nine and that's your fee.

I am a convert.

Mish-Mash Blaðið

2009-09-25T18:48:00.010-05:00

A few things of note:
That's from Liam Gillick's 2008 exhibit at Casey Caplan titled The State Itself Becomes a Super Whatnot. I have it here because I am MORE EXCITED THAN I CAN PUT WORDS TO that he is coming to Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art in the form of his most comprehensive show in America to date.

And that's about all I allowed myself to read on MCA's website. His work is really where today's most progressive art is at. Like I alluded to in my last post about minimalism being kind-of like ripening fruit - as soon as it becomes successful/delicious it can no longer progress/is useless or bad for people - is proven wrong by the 'relational' artists. Gillick takes a societal narrative and weaves it, its characters and the economic-politico factors into abstract, manufactured sculpture.

I will take it no further than that for the moment because the other thing that's wonderful about Gillick's work is that it's ultimately about the experience of the individual within and around the art work. Dwaling through his exhibitions - that is, how they are designed (like his labyrinth in Berlin a ways ago) - gives as much of an impression of each particular message as the individual pieces do.

I cannot wait to give a full review of this show when I get to see it.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I sent out my transcripts and applications to the University of Iceland this past week, and I think my referees are just about ready to do so with my recommendations. Pretty soon I'm going to be done with my UK and American school applications, too, and then the anticipation sets in. Let's do it again!

While I'm on the subject of Iceland, "we're not refunding you" Davíð Oddsson is now editor-in-chief of Morgunblaðið! For those not in-the-know, MBL is one of two Icelandic daily newspapers, and notably the more conservative. And Oddsson is the former PM and former head of the Central Bank. That's really what you want to be reminded of every morning when you're reading about the global recession. Good news is the Icelandic Journalists Union has publicly denounced the change and the Reykjavík Grapevine will no longer use MBL as a source. I'm definitely not an expert in Icelandic politics, but I think I have enough knowledge to say this is pretty ridiculous. Read about it and the several nasty details involved with this little regime change here.

Back to personal matters, I've decided to start work on a new fiction project! Where I'm going is there's a man who's the son of the owner of a Russian baths (how's that for bodice-ripping potential?). But I want to make it mostly about delayed social growth and interior stuff. Plus it gives me an excuse to finally visit the Division Street Russian and Turkish Baths! Let me know what you think of the first sentences I've written:

"I sit watching the black lacquered tree with no steam. It has been covered for two years, its arms painted until their heads eroded to dull bullets, atrophied as they crept cut-off from the trunk by the thickened, glass wood. Then they were covered, too. And now it hums, stiller in the park than the others, and it does not keep the fog in its palms."

Yeah, that doesn't illustrate the baths element, but that'll come.
Cheers!

The Woman Whose Art Is a Fungus

2009-09-23T10:45:00.010-05:00

That does not sound like a flattering description but it very much is. The above and the background behind my title are both from Icelandic-Chicagoan artist Anna Jóelsdóttir's most recent show "the dandelions are over." I think that her work is absolutely spectacular. So spectacular that I sent her an email pouring out my response to her work a month ago and came to the gallery that sponsors her (that's Zg Gallery here in Chicago) at 10am.

Initially I discovered her work just in general research of Icelandic artists, trying to get the lay-of-the-galleries before I committed to pursuing study in the country. But Ms. Jóelsdóttir's work has a depth that transcends her unusual, conversational homeland.

It's really the newest abstraction I've seen. That's something incredibly difficult to do, particularly for a primarily painting/drawing-based artist, considering the extremes of post-painterly abstraction and minimalism. She takes the two main strains of abstraction - the logical, bare aspect (think Judd, Barnett Newman) and the expressive, humanistic bit (Rothko, Pollock, tons-of-other-people-in-the-50s-and-80s) - and she fuses them together, forcing a type of power struggle between the two parts. The logical bits take the place of rigid, straight lines and planes of white space, and the expressive bits are in germinating, organic forms of color spreading across the material like a - get it? - fungus.

In 'the dandelions are over,' it is the expressive element that trumps the logical, but not completely for the better. From the color comes a black, insidious strain of ink that leeches onto the organic and the planar elements, like an acid. It's an expression of darkness, recalling grief, blotting out all other parts of the psyche. It's important to note also that while emotionally-tied elements of these works - the color - overpower logic, they also spawn something dark, showing both the positive and negative strengths of emotion. But that is what is so spectacular about Anna's work; it is a strain of the mind taken without censorship, becoming a form that appears to move as the eye travels across the canvas, like it is constantly growing. This is most apparent in the installation piece seen above, where the paper becomes some writhing creature or matter that spills haphazardly wherever it happens to go.

Her work is cerebral and living - the two things that make abstraction one of the most human of the artistic styles (when it's done well). I think (and apparently Anna does too, see her bio) that this stems from the isolation that comes from a place like Iceland, even with the capital being the thriving, international center that it is today. It forces one to turn inward a bit more than elsewhere, to learn more of the workings of one's mind.

You should all go buy her work. A show of hers is on view at the Tarble Arts Center at Eastern Illinois University.

(PS: I don't own rights to any artists' images represented and do not claim to. When I look up copyright stuff I'll make a more 'official' thing on the sidebar)

First Pictures

2009-09-22T17:14:00.005-05:00

Since this blog will be slightly fashion-related, I figured I'd include a few photos from a little shoot a friend of mine and I did last week:

If you squint in this one, you can see the spectacular pocket-like detail in the back of my jacket (it's 3rd or 4th hand Comme des Garçons. By the way, who else is really annoyed by Marc Jacobs just deciding to completely rip-off the Japanese for spring 2010?).

Tut-Tut

2009-09-22T16:15:00.004-05:00

First Post!

I'm awfully happy I decided to do this. It fills up the hours I spend waiting for jobs to come visit me. They are my best friends.

Let me give you a little explanation before I launch into 'mission statement'-mode.
I graduated high school in middle-American in June this past year. I was all set to go to (school-that-will-not-be-named-because-I-am-not-vulgar) this year, but it wound up that my private loan requests were all denied.
In hindsight that's OK since those plus government loans would total around $200,000.
Who needs two houses, a car and food anyway?

Before this little crash, I'd gotten that little portentous feeling that I wouldn't be able to go to (school) anyway. So I started looking at alternatives. Turns out there aren't all that many fine institutions in America that ask for less than 20k from their customers. I decided to remove practicality from my mind (it's not that hard) and consider someplace I really wanted to go to.
ICELAND. THERE IS NO SUNLIGHT.
But being serious, there's such a concentration of creativity there that it seemed natural to me. There are far more significant centers of contemporary art there than at (you will not trip me up! I am a classy lady. This is no place for me to complain about that old school).

Plus, it's dang cheap! I've found in my research that European schools in general tend to be more concerned with investing in their students than US schools are. So along with Iceland, I'm applying to several other European universities for 2010. Not to mention all of the schools I'm looking at (including Iceland) have more substantial and contemporary Art History programs.

But in the meantime, I have to earn some money to send myself there. For the past two months or so, I've been massacring trees all over the place as offerings to my best friends all named Job (Ha, see? I am still a writer. Does Blogspot allow me to make crude Biblical references?). I've got one that looks promising, but it won't start until mid-October.

Now, dears, I hope to bring you some unusual insight. Martha Graham said something of each person having their own creative expression unique to the world, and if it is not utilized, it is lost. I'm a person constantly humbled by the strength the visual arts in all their carnations are able to provoke and express. I'm a slightly discouraged writer. I'm of the belief that fashion is one of the most individual means of expression a person can utilize if one chooses to.

So, join me while I pursue the tasks of learning Icelandic, remaining culturally active and making mo-nay!