The Exhibition “Lobbyists” by artistic duo Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson, who have been chosen to represent Iceland at the 2011 Venice Biennale, opened at the Living Art Museum in Reykjavík yesterday.
The exhibition features lobbyists at work in Brussels and Strasbourg where they watch over and try to influence the European Union’s decision making. The work consists of journalism, documentary and the music video art form, a press release states.
The work of Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson (b. Madrid 1969 / b. Reykjavík 1973) is characterized by their at once attentive and critical, analytical and emotional gaze and their interest in identifying the many questions that the present raises. The trans-cultural tendency in today’s world and the complex relationships that spring from it is one of the artists’ concerns.
Castro and Ólafsson are based in Rotterdam and Berlin and met in the Netherlands in 1997 and have been collaborating since. Building up a strong body of work using a variety of media, they have developed a conceptual approach with a sense of play, transgression, and inventiveness, often based on intense research into a given subject area.
“Lobbyists” placed third at the Prix de Rome visual art awards in the Netherlands in 2009. The exhibition will run until October 2. The Living Art Museum, located on Skúlagata 28, is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 12 to 5 pm. Admission is free.
