May 4, 2014 - Juli 6, 2014
 

Iceland – Art and Narration

Exhibition of the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen

The exhibition is under the patronage of the Ambassador of Iceland H.E. Gunnar Snorri Gunnarsson.

The exhibition is supported by the Kunststiftung NRW, Sparkasse Vest Recklinghausen, the Förderverein für Bildende Kunst and other sponsors.

In 20th century art, abstraction and conceptualism radically rejected the narrative. The narrative quality of art was long suspected of being mere appearance and "false consciousness" and only came back into focus later, for example with the pictorial worlds of the "Neue Wilden" or the "Neue Leipziger Schule". In Iceland, the art of storytelling has traditionally shaped everyday life and culture; myths and legends permeate it as a matter of course. From the early medieval Icelandic sagas, with which the country inscribed itself on the world literary heritage list, to the novels of Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness, Iceland has produced important works of world literature. Every year, Icelandic publishers offer the 320,000 inhabitants of the island in the North Atlantic around 1,500 new titles with an average print run of 1,000 copies per publication. It is therefore not surprising that Reykjavík was included as the fifth city on the UNESCO Cities of Literature list in 2011 due to its rich literary tradition.

The visual arts only began to develop in Iceland in the mid-19th century. Significantly, Sigurður Guðmundsson (1833-1874), known as the painter, was also Iceland's first stage designer and thus closely associated with literary creation. Since then, the leading medium of literature has exerted a consistently strong influence on the country's visual arts.The works of Jóhannes Sveinsson Kjarval (1885 - 1972), the most important Icelandic modernist painter, and the works of the internationally successful Erró (* 1934), who draws on surrealism and pop art as well as comics and science fiction, also bear witness to this.They form the prelude to the exhibition, which then presents ten contemporary positions, including Sigurður Guðmundsson (*1942), Helgi Þorgils Friðjónsson (*1953), Steingrimur Eyfjörd (*1954) and Björk (*1965).Photographic works by Ólafur Elíasson (*1967) are at the end of the exhibition tour.


Exhibition management:
Ferdinand Ullrich
Hans-Jürgen Schwalm

in cooperation with:
Halldór Björn Runólfsson, National Gallery of Iceland
Norbert Weber, Kunst in Nordeuropa, Eckernförde

Opening Hours
Tickets
* Pupils, Apprentices, Students, Groups from 10 persons, Owners of the Recklinghausen Pass i.e. any other equivalent identification card from other municipalites, Owners of the Ehrenamtskarte NRW or the Jubiläums-Ehrenamtskarte NRW
The Kunsthalle is barrier-free accesible.
Guided Tours
The public guided tours are free of charge, only the entrance fee needs to be paid.

Per group (20 persons max.) a booked guided tour is 55,- Euro. Registration via tel. (02361) 50 19 35.
Address
Approach
The Kunsthalle is located across the central station, close to the bus station and is accessible via all public transportations. An underground park station is located underneath the bus station.