Text and photos by Kremena Nikolova-Fontaine. Courtesy of the gallery.

“It is best when art opens the heart, the brain is overrated and his super power today is a misunderstanding,” claims Icelandic painter Dadi Gudbjörnsson in the leaflet of his newly-opened (untitled) exhibition on the ground floor of Reykjavík City Library, as part of Artótek, a collection of Icelandic art for lease or sale.

I did not intend to write about Gudbjörnsson's exhibition when I went to the City Library on Culture Night in order to get some research done for the current art review.

I was all hooked up on writing about the pioneers of Icelandic art in connection with another exhibition, “Colors” at the ASÍ Art Museum before I realized that the ASÍ exhibition will be over by the time this article is published.

I wouldn't have mentioned this seemingly insignificant coincidence of facts if the subject of both exhibitions did not relate in a way; keeping in mind Icelandic tradition in landscape and abstract art.

If I was asked to write “Icelandic Art For Dummies” in one paragraph, I would sum up the history of Icelandic art in simple terms like this:

In the 1900s Icelanders went to study in Copenhagen's Art Academy, which was a conservative institution at the time (i.e. not influenced by modernistic trends). As Iceland was still a Danish colony back then, Icelandic painters found nationalistic motivation in glorification of the landscape. In the 1950s, abstract art emerged and heated aesthetic debates mixed in with politics. To landscape or not to landscape.

Reading about the politics of the 1950s, I crave the passion of those times. I want to see people throwing cakes at each other in art tantrums. Sophisticated anger and insults are entertaining.

Of course, fanaticism is not healthy. Today’s society seems to have reached the other extreme when nobody dares to say: “this is not my cup of tea”. Having the luxury of being a foreign-born Icelander, I can express my opinion without worrying whether I will upset a touchy relative or a friend.

Honestly, I am quite tired of depictions of Icelandic landscapes. I wonder how many artists I would end up with in my list of “Icelandic Artists Who Have Ever Done Icelandic Landscape Art”, but I am not tired of Icelandic nature itself.

As a dyslexic person, Gudbjörnsson talks of overcoming reading difficulties by creating visual art in the leaflet of the exhibition (Icelandic text only): "nobody can avoid ‘the text mountain’. This ‘mountain’ always comes to you in one way or another". At 50, the artist learned to read anew and started practicing Sahaja yoga, which changed his life in many aspects.

So perhaps the mountain in “Fjallist” (2009-2010), for example, is not literally inspired by Icelandic nature but serves as a metaphor for “text mountains”. 

"Fjallist"

In my opinion, it is the best work in this exhibition because the decorative elements take second place pointing in the middle towards the quite meditative emptiness.

I rather fancy the art principle less is more and favor those few works where the crowded space is counterbalanced with a quiet plain area of color (blue mountains), such as in “Landshjarta” (2010) and “Blómhjarta” (2010).

"Blómhjarta"

Originally educated as a furniture-maker, the artist loves the creation of handmade objects, which perhaps explains why he went on to study at the Iceland Academy of Art and Rijksakademi van Beldende Kunsten in Amsterdam in the 1980s. Jóhannes S. Kjarval, Hans Bellmer, Dieter Roth and Pieter Holstein are among his admitted influences.

Gudbjörnsson had also been on the board of the National Gallery of Iceland and served as chairman of the Association of Icelandic Visual Artists.

With all my respect, Dadi Gudbjörnsson's art is too symmetrical and deliberately innocent to be my cup of tea, such as the works “Sólin í deginum” (2010) and “Leikur í listinni” (2010).

"Sólin í deginum"

“Sólin í deginum” is quite literally a smiling sun: yellow on dark blue background, with lips and eyes, in a square format. The communicated pseudo naïve message is: “I am too cute to be true, you must like me!”

I stared at the canvas in search of any hidden layers with a potential mandala experience but no traces of such spiritual intent are to be found.

“Leikur í listinni” depicts an s-shaped multi-colored form, reminiscent of a double-faced worm. A worm with not just one but two smiling faces, mercy!

"Leikur í listinni"

Not only the shape fills the frame to a bursting point, but the cyan-magenta background additionally aids the claustrophobic feeling.

The form is totally unrelated to the background and their enemy relationship is amplified by a dotted black border. This work demonstrates far too much of pseudo naïve art and so creates a comical effect. Perhaps that's why the title in translation is “Play in Art”.

My opinion does not mean that you could not fall in love with these exuberantly happy canvases like fireworks of ecstasy. One thing is for sure: the vocabulary of symbols is unmistakably 100 percent Dadi Gudbjörnsson's original style in the local art scene and internationally.

The exhibition runs until October 3, 2010. Admission is free.

Reykjavík City Library (Borgarbókasafn Reykjavíkur) is located on Tryggvagata 15, 101 Reykjavík.

Kremena Nikolova-Fontaine – kremenan@gmail.com

Kremena Nikolova-Fontaine works at home for the elderly and is a passionate collector of art books, dedicating every spare moment to learn more about art while dreaming about having an exhibition of her own. She studied graphic design at the School of Visual Arts in Akureyri from 1999 to 2002. In college she realized that she didn’t want to be a designer or commercial artist but rather an illustrator and writer. At the moment she’s experimenting with her first graphic novel.