www.artnews.is/issue021/021_birta.htm

Shauna Laurel Jones interviews Birta Guðjónsdóttir:

101 Projects in Reykjavík

For the last few years, Birta Guðjónsdóttir has worn many hats within the Icelandic arts community as well as abroad. Formerly a curator at SAFN (Private Collection of Contemporary Art), Birta also operates the periodic exhibition space Dwarf Gallery; she serves on the board of Sequences: Real-Time Art Festival and is a board member of The Living Art Museum and Sjónauki Art Magazine; and she is an artist herself, holding an MFA from Piet Zwart Institute of Rotterdam. Now Birta holds a new prominent role as Artistic Director/Curator at 101 Projects, an exhibition space in downtown Reykjavík that was formerly operated as 101 Gallery. Shauna Laurel Jones sat down with Birta to ask her about her new position, the programming goals of 101 Projects, and, of course, her personal opinion about the current state of the arts in Iceland.

How did the transformation of 101 Gallery come about, and what are the new aims of 101 Projects?

Earlier this year, I was offered the job of curator at the exhibition space that was 101 Gallery, and I made a proposal for a plan, which they agreed to proceed with. 101 Gallery started out as a semi-commercial gallery, and a part of my proposal was to program non-commercial exhibitions there. To me, that meant that the definition of a gallery no longer applied to the activity of the space. Because of this change of direction, I suggested that we would also change the name accordingly. So 101 Gallery became 101 Projects.

Since it opened in 2004, 101 Gallery offered over thirty exhibitions of well-established and emerging Icelandic artists. I proposed that we do exhibitions with well-established international artists, artists who have, in their practice, been occupied with issues of personal and national identity, national heritage and history.

Do you see these as the types of exhibitions that Icelandic audiences are hungry for? Or things that are lacking here?

I don’t know. It’s hard to tell in general what Icelandic art audiences are hungry for, perhaps partly because of a lack of dialogue and feedback in the media. For cinema and theater, popularity can be measured from ticket sales, but when it comes to things that are perhaps not entertainment, or might for various reasons not appeal to everybody, there are no statistics, few indications of what people are looking for. Personally, I don’t see it as a part of my practice to give people what they want or need, but more to give people what they didn’t know they wanted or didn’t know they needed. For me, that’s more interesting to do as an artist and as a curator, because to me the whole process of working with art is about learning and asking questions, and mediating what you’re learning and questioning, what you’re finding out about the world, about yourself, sharing doubts and so on. And this mediation sometimes takes place when you don’t expect it, or in ways you don’t expect it. So I’m not too concerned about every show I work on appealing to everybody.

When I worked as a curator at SAFN, which was operated from 2003 to 2008, my office was situated in the middle of the exhibition space. It was thus a privilege for me to have the chance to communicate with a majority of guests who came into the space. Through this exposure and communication, I realized that the Icelandic art audience is much more interested than people like to think or than the media suggests. There is a strong, interested visual art audience in Iceland, not always most interested in the most popular, or most accessible of works. I think there’s great underestimation on the part of the media about that. And to a large extent by the cultural sector in general.

How do you think the media’s underestimation itself will have—or has already had—a direct impact on arts funding from public and/or private sources, especially now during Iceland’s financial meltdown?

The media is obviously expected to serve the role of mediating important news and reflect on society at large. We have given the media power to put value on matters in our society. The media in Iceland puts less emphasis on visual art than other art forms. Icelandic TV stations assume there isn’t an audience for visual arts programs; art isn’t considered to be entertaining enough. Art can be entertaining but that is not its role. Because artworks are not inexpensive commodities as are CDs, books and DVDs, they have fewer distribution possibilities. In our super-capitalistic society, there has been little understanding of this difference, and sales have been considered to be the measurement of relevance and importance. This aspect is recently reflected in much writing about the economic value of artworks and art auctions in Icelandic newspapers, and fewer interviews with artists or critical reflections on the local art activity.

There is no tradition for an active dialogue about art in Iceland, so when the private sector started to support the arts in Iceland just a few years ago, the art scene wasn’t ready for a dialogue about these political changes and became a currency for some, a marketing tool. The city and state expected the private sector to support the arts but, with a few exceptions, the private sector did so with only very small gestures, considering the favorable circumstances at the time. Now, in the light of recent events, the private sector greatly withdraws from support and I am worried that the public sector will not get out of the capitalistic mindset of supporting mostly art that is expected to be profitable, thus disregarding the importance of building up a creative society that respects, supports and takes good care of its cultural heritage.

Getting back to your new role at 101 Projects: As you mentioned, you worked as a curator at SAFN, which was one of the most international art spaces in Iceland, and you’re bringing this internationality to 101 Projects. What other things do you see yourself bringing to your new position?

I’m definitely building on the grounds I’ve already established, in terms of experience of working with professionals in the field of art and building a network of artists, galleries and art institutions. I don’t see it as bringing new things; I guess every exhibition is new, depending on the context. But what I would like to do as a curator at 101 Projects is to focus more and more with each project on certain issues that I’m interested in. Again, I’m interested in focusing on aspects of national heritage and questions of nationality, which I think are—and even more so now—important questions for this nation, and any nation, to humbly confront, individually and collectively.

For me, 101 Projects has the potential to be an interesting platform for a long-term project such as that. 101 Projects is not an institution; it’s independent of public responsibilities. That’s something that I’m aware of in my programming. Not to say that I’m doing radical shows that I couldn’t do at institutions, but to realize that this platform is open to endless possibilities and rapid changes. I was interested in this job because I think it allows for building up a clear curatorial vision, a research platform. I’m interested in keeping flexibility and improvisation, and responding to changing contexts. National identity and national heritage are obviously immensely large concepts, but I approach these collaborations with artists from the point of view of their work relating to our local context.

And it seems like you’re trying to bridge gaps with public programs, like the lectures in conjunction with the current exhibition, for instance.

These things might not happen regularly. For this show of Mathilde ter Heijne’s, Woman To Go, I was interested in inviting people who have specialized in subjects in relation to this specific exhibition, but there will be other shows where I might not do such a parallel program. But overall, yes, I’m interested in creating a platform for dialogue about the shows and/or in relation to them. It is only recently that I feel that museums and art spaces in Iceland are responding to the need for dialogue about their activities, but these parallel dialogues have taken place mostly through educational departments of museums and are perhaps less connected with the academic field. I think there’s a great need for this gap to be bridged. But I’m also aware of the fine line between a productive and interesting dialogue or lecture and drowning a show in immediate analysis. For me, the dialogue has to add to, or have a very actual connection with, the exhibition. It’s important to me to give people space to experience shows from their own perspectives and the perspective of the artist. It’s interesting for a curator, this creating of a context, and still trusting the artwork to be the context.

What are your upcoming shows?

Icelandic artist Davíð Örn Halldórsson will be opening his show on January 17. I decided in the beginning to do Icelandic shows, or invite Icelandic artists to participate in group shows only one or two times a year, but to focus more on international art. After Davíð Örn’s show comes Susan Hiller, an American artist who lives in the UK. Susan holds a PhD in anthropology, which is the ground on which she builds her works. Then comes a show of North-Irish artist Seamus Harahan, who mostly works with video, documenting details of daily life in his hometown of Belfast.

As for reasons for why I decide to do these particular shows at 101 Projects as opposed to others, I think the same answer applies as for artists; you always begin from your own point of view, your personal interests, and there is a need to share, to mediate and to experiment. I’m probably always doing the shows I would be or have been affected by myself, and I thus assume that some others will be too. But I’m not interested in propaganda art or creating a moral agenda as a curator. Although the current show, for instance, has a bit of an agenda inherent to the work, it’s also open to a personal, poetic reading. I am interested in that, and I see it as my role to create an interesting context for and mediate what the artist wants to communicate, in circumstances open for yourself to enter.