A Journey Out of Oneself

As I drove over the mountain from the city of Reykjavík to the small greenhouse town of Hveragerdi on my way to see Elín´s exhibition, I did not know what to expect. I had not seen her work before and I did not know if there was a particular reason for her choice of venue. But a chance to get out of a familiar environment and cross the mountain was a welcome change.

Entering the museum, I marched past a display of small pictures of little yellow flags towards the main display hall, excited to see the mainpresentation. Coming around the corner I was stopped in my tracks by a vast expanse of yellow, stretching out before me towards a single hanging round light. It was the bright primary colour of children´s playthings and I was amused to notice that the older adults were eying the display with nervous curiosity, uncertain whether or how to approach it – a young child in the group however had no such inhibitions and ran delightedly onto the yellow – as they approached the light it glowed brighter and brighter – the child froze with wonder and uncertainty – had they perhaps done something wrong? Now, however, the adults were relieved – you were supposed to walk on it – it was ok – so they went up to the child and took her closer to the lamp, which grew brighter and brighter – adults and children alike then started experimenting with the piece, approaching the light from different angles.

I was very lucky to come at this instant because it captured in a moment the essense of the display – clear-cut graphic simplicity of form and colour which nonetheless turned out to be intellectually complex – based on perspective, not just on where one stood relative to the light, but also on how one conceptualised oneself – an adult who is not supposed to play versus an adult who is allowed to experiment with art – and thus the piece liberated the viewer from their typical confines, how they expected themselves to be, and allowed them the excitement of exploration and participation. This curious mixture of formal simplicity, very much reminiscent of early modernist graphic forms, and subjective mind games, very much reminiscent of postmodernist obsession with self-discourse, was delightful. And I realised with a shock that it had begun before I even arrived – the trip over the mountain was itself a symbolic step – out of the confines of the familiar to a garden-town of exploration!

I turned slightly and saw what was perhaps my favourite piece – the money tree – white trunk and transparent branches (simple but again very much dependent on perspective), with branches holding a few monetary leaves. I approached the piece and suddenly thought that there seemed to be very little money attached to the branches – had some notes perhaps been stolen? (shock and discomfort) – then it occurred to me that maybe one was supposed to donate funds by depositing it on the tree (more like a coathanger than a tree perhaps!) – which idea provoked perhaps more discomfort! And then suddenly it struck me again that this simple piece had done it again – drawn me into a dialogue – both a dialogue with the piece of art and a dialogue with myself about what my role was supposed to be. It occurred to me what value this seemingly simple work in fact had – but then after all it was a money tree – and is not the value of art in making us question ourselves and our surroundings rather than simply inspecting the price tag that it bears…?

This recurrent theme of viewer-involvement in the seemingly simple forms of the art-work was brought to another level in the next room — large and apparently empty except for a rotating platform with a strange substance on the top. Again I walked around the edge unsure of how to interact with this piece until a couple of playing children again provided the key — leaping onto its rotating surface, the material proved to be soft and spongy, moulding itself to their shape — when they sprang off the shape remained for a few moments — a physical metaphor for theme of the whole presentation in which the art is not complete until the viewer has made their impression. Had this been all, it would have been in line with the first reactive-lamp display — but as I circled the room considering the piece, I suddenly heard an ethereal waft of water — and it was gone. Backing up a couple steps I caught it again for an instant — was it my imagination? Moving my head slowly through the space, standing on tiptoe, craning my neck I found a spot where I could hear the water noises clearly, trickling invisibly across the ether. And then I noticed that other visitors in the room (should I say, other participants?) were all looking at me — and suddenly I realised how strange I must seem — stood in the middle of open floor, wavering on tiptoe, craning to hear where obviously nothing was to be heard — the village idiot stumbled into the show! This time the art had not just drawn me into a physical dialogue with it but it had successfully made me into the art myself and thrust me into a role far more curious than laying on the rotating platform would have been!

All of the pieces in the exhibition had this delightful property – simple in form but complex, not so much in interpretation, but in interaction – art as a catalyst for self assessment. This art was as much about the viewer as the object itself. On the way out I paused at the little flag pictures and smiled – each little bright graphically simple flag contained the word “you” – the title of the exhibition – and now I knew why!

Dr. Matthew Whelpton
Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics
University of Iceland
text from catalogue, published by Elin Hansdottir