Curatorial Work

 

2017 - 2018 Ange Leccia/Contemporary French Video Art. National Gallery Iceland and Akureyri Art Museum.

https://www.listasafn.is/english/exhibitions/ange-leccia-1 

2020 Listmíla

https://www.facebook.com/HaskoliIslands/posts/10156679910165728/


2019 Talk to Me!  

Latvian contemporary art from the National Museum of Art  (LNMA).
Akureyri Art Museum
Galleries 01 - 05
June 1 - September 22 2019

On August 23ʳᵈ 1989, Latvians joined their neighbouring citizens in protest against the imperial rule of the Soviet Union, by forming a human chain connecting the three Baltic capitals: Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn. This symbolic assembly of silent bodies became known as The Chain of Freedom. Two years later, Iceland became the first country in the world to recognize the independence of Latvia.

Insisting on the fact that freedom is essentially based on relations, Latvian artists are questioning their identity and searching for a livable future. The exhibition Talaðu við mig! / Runā ar mani! / Talk to Me! implies that the contemporary art museum can act as a stage where dialectics of intimacy and political memory can be reinforced in order to elucidate the enigmas of our futures.

Participants: Andris Breže, Arturs Bērziņš, Dace Džeriņa, Ģirts Muižnieks, Ieva Epnere, Inga Meldere, Katrīna Neiburga, Kaspars Podnieks, Krišs Salmanis, Kristaps Epners, Kristaps Ģelzis, Leonards Laganovskis, Maija Kurševa, Mārtiņš Ratniks, Raitis Šmits, Rasa Šmite, Vija Celmiņš, Vilnis Zābers and Zenta Dzividzinska.

Curators: Astrida Rogule and Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir.

https://www.lv100.lv/en/news/akureyri-art-museum-is-opening-the-exhibition-of-latvian-contemporary-art/

http://rixc.org/en/home___/0/691/

http://icelandicartcenter.is/blog/taladu-vid-mig/

https://artzine.is/conversations-with-contemporary-latvian-art-in-akureyri/

https://www.baltictimes.com/akureyri_art_museum_is_opening_the_exhibition_of_latvian_contemporary_art__tala_u_vi__mig__/_runa__ar_mani__/_talk_to_me__/

 

2016 Feckless and Hotheaded – Guest Curator for Curated by_in Vienna, Austria http://icelandicartcenter.is/blog/13590/

https://curatedby.squarespace.com/articles/curated-by-aesa-sigurjonsdottir

RÓSKA (Ragnhildur Óskarsdóttir) (*1940 – 1996 Iceland) studied at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts as well as in Prague and Paris before enrolling in L´Academia di Belle Arti in Rome. She belonged to the generation of radical European artists who wished to expunge the boundaries between life and art, fighting against the artistic snobbery of the bourgeoisie, the political complacency of the masses, and the propaganda machinery of professional politicans. Róska was a painter, a photographer, a film director, an insurrectionist. She lived in Rome for the majority of her life.

https://curatedby.at/articles/curated-by-aesa-sigurjonsdottir

https://curatedby.squarespace.com/articles/curated-by-aesa-sigurjonsdottir

 

https://www.facebook.com/142836059121154/photos/a.1163500487054701/1163501063721310/?type=3https://www.facebook.com/pg/Galerie-Raum-mit-Licht-142836059121154/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1163500487054701

 

 

2015 Marginalia – texts, sketches, and doodles in Kjarval’s art. Reykjavík Art Museum 19 June - 29 Nov. 2015

“I see myself writing, and I hear the pen on the paper.”

Kjarval’s words could be taken as the theme of his exhibition – as they focus attention on the material, the method and the imagination. We see Kjarval at work with his pen or brush in hand: he draws, writes; sketches in ink, pencil or tusch. On all kinds of paper he draws lines – delicate or raw, silent or aggressive.
The title Marginalia refers to peripheral entries in the margins of a body text, as often seen in old manuscripts, and vividly described by Umberto Eco in The Name of the Rose: “This was a psalter in whose margins was delineated a world reversed with respect to the one to which our senses have accustomed us.”  Thus Kjarval’s marginal world is manifested in letters and notebooks, on the backs of envelopes and all sorts of scraps of paper, like a topsy-turvy universe seen in “wondrous
allusions in aenigmate.

” Drawings, sketches, scribbles and doodles, odd words and sentences, drafts of letters, and notes written to friends and acquaintances: it requires some patience to read this material – although it has been scanned and categorised, and is accessible for the first time in digital form. The pieces are about anything and everything – sometimes nothing at all – and they survive purely because they relate to Kjarval, forming a background or haunting presence in his life.
Kjarval’s tendency to hoard anything and everything has often been mentioned – he wrote and drew on any available surface, sent greetings and pictures all over the country, he “corresponded” as it was called in the old days of letter-writing.
Nobel-prizewinning novelist Halldór Kiljan Laxness described how Kjarval “spreads around him works of art with inexhaustible wealth, wherever he goes, without caring whether the material which has, by chance, become his medium on that occasion is appropriate to conserve the image; thus many of his masterpieces are made on poor-quality notebook-pages, paper napkins, lavatory paper and other such inferior materials, which deteriorate rapidly.”

A remarkable amount of such material has, however, survived, and this exhibition delves into this personal world of Kjarval’s – presenting a large number of drawings and a variety of writings in which text is integrated with images. Many of the pieces appear spontaneous and chaotic, reflecting Kjarval’s unceasing creative urge and his restless mind. Some display a more personal and darker side than the familiar face of the artist; the exhibition also includes items such as drafts of letters, which provide insight into his diverse and rewarding relationship with the people of Iceland, as well as sketches on envelopes which he would develop into new works. Here we catch a glimpse of the artist’s many sides: the writer, the poet, the coiner of new words, the friend and companion – and above all the artist who will always take us by surprise.

Jóhannes S. Kjarval (1885−1972) varð goðsögn í lifanda lífi sem málari stórbrotinna landslagsmynda og skapari skáldlegra fantasíuheima. Enginn íslenskur myndlistarmaður hefur verið í slíkum hávegum hafður með þjóð sinni og hann. Hann var tignaður sem sjáandi og snillingur. Allir þóttust eiga í honum bein og menn nánast slógust um að komast yfir verk hans. Það hins vegar á færra vitorði að hann var sískrifandi og framúrskarandi teiknari. Eftir hann liggur umfangsmikið safn af teikningum, skissum, sendibréfum og handritum. Þetta hversdagsefnis listamannsins opnar glufur inn í einkaheim sem fram til þessa hefur verið almenningi lítt kunnur. Í huga hans var texti ekki ofar mynd, eða mynd útfærsla á texta, heldur var samruni skriftar og teikningar aðferð til að sprengja upp flötinn og afnema mörk myndlistar og ritlistar. Við sjáum Kjarval ljóslifandi að störfum með penna eða pensil á lofti. Hann teiknar og skrifar, yrkir ljóð, kastar fram tækifærisvísu, ritar sendibréf, rissar upp hugmyndir og hripar skilaboð á umslag eða pappírssnifsi með bleki, blýanti eða tússi, ætíð af styrk og sköpunarkrafti sem á sér vart sinn líka í íslenskri listasögu.

Curators: Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir and Kristín Guðnadóttir.

http://www.artmuseum.is/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-2182/3369_read-1988/date-1805/

 2015 Interplay. Sigurjón Ólafsson & Finn Juhl. Thinking across sculpture and design. Reykjavík: Listasafn Sigurjóns Ólafssonar/National Gallery of Iceland.  http://www.listasafn.is/english/exhibitions/nr/351 

2014 Tracks in Sand. Retrospective Sigurjón Ólafsson. National Gallery of Iceland http://www.listasafn.is/english/exhibitions/nr/316

2014 (Re) construction of Friendship. Riga European Capital of Culture https://artspacereconstruction.wordpress.com/reconstruction-of-friendship/

http://www.echogonewrong.com/review-from-latvia/dubious-friendships-on-the-reconstruction-of-friendship-exhibition-in-riga/

2013: Turku-biennale, Aboa Vetus, Arts Nova.

Finland. http://www.turkubiennaali.fi/

2013: En Thule froiduleuse. FNAGP (Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques) http://maba.fnagp.fr/actualites/?year=2013

EN THULÉ FROIDULEUSE, ASPECTS DE LA SCÈNE ARTISTIQUE ISLANDAISE CONTEMPORAINE

http://maba.fnagp.fr/actualite/117/en-thule-froiduleuse-aspects-de-la-scene-artistique-islandaise-contemporaine/

https://www.exporevue.com/magazine/fr/index_thule.html

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Galerie-Raum-mit-Licht-142836059121154/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1163500487054701

 

2010 Reality Check. Reykjavík Art Festival

 

 http://www.studija.lv/en/?parent=1073

2008: Dreams of the Sublime in contemporary Icelandic art, in Reykjavík Art Museum

https://artmuseum.is/exhibitions/dreams-sublime-and-nowhere-contemporary-icelandic-art

2008: Dreams of the Sublime in contemporary Icelandic art, Bozar, Brussel http://artdaily.com/news/25419/Dreams-of-the-Sublime-and-Nowhere-in-Contemporary-Icelandic-Art#.VN2u0caN968

2009: Dreams of the Sublime in contemporary Icelandic art, Kunsti Art Museum, Vaasa, Finland.