News

Lighting of the Oslo Christmas tree this Sunday

Next Sunday, 29 November 2015, the annual event of lighting the Oslo Christmas tree will take place at Austurvöllur. 

For decades the lighting of the Oslo Christmas tree has marked the beginning of our Christmas preparations in the city. It has its place in the hearts of the people in Reykjavík, who gather each year to enjoy both the spirit of Christmas and each others company. The lighting of the Oslo Christmas tree has become an important tradition, with this year marking the 64th time the people of Oslo, Norway give the people of Reykjavík a pine tree (brought from the Norwegian woods) for Christmas. 
Musicians Stefán Hilmarsson and Ragnheiður Gröndal will entertain guests by singing Christmas carols along with a number of great musicians, while the Christmas tree from Oslo is lit. This year’s event will take place on Sunday, 29 November and will be hosted by one of Iceland’s most beloved and long-serving radio hosts, Ms. Gerður G. Bjarklind. Of course we can expect a few Yule Lads to show up too! The schedule is set to take place between 15:30 and 17:15.

New flight option to Reykjavik

British Airways flies now to Iceland
We welcome a new airline company to Iceland.

Their announcement says:
"Our direct flights from London Heathrow (LHR) to Keflavik International Airport (KEF) means that visiting Iceland's coastal capital couldn't be easier. In just three hours you could be exploring cosmopolitian Reykjavik and beyond."

This addition mean more options for our guests to visit Reykjavik and explore the rich cultural life along with enjoying all the natural and man-made resourches we have, such as our geothermal pools, hiking at any of our local mountains or rent a bike for an ecological exploring of the city. 

 

Paintings of Two Eras – The Making of Erró and the D-exhibition series

Two exhibitions will be opened, Saturday 31 October

Erró’s formative years between 1955 and 1964 are the subject of the exhibition The Making of Erró, which will be opened at Reykjavík Art Museum – Hafnarhús Saturday 31 October at 4 pm. Another show will be opened at the same time, an exhibition of works by Úlfur Karlsson, a part of series which derives its name from Gallery D at Hafnarhús. Two artists are brought together who both have found their means of expression in painting, although a period of sixty years separates the oldest works from the most recent.

Both artists will be present at the opening of the exhibitions, which will be opened by the Mayor Reykjavík Dagur B. Eggertsson.

The Making of Erró presents an image of an artist who, while at the centre of the vortex of the art world, mostly in Paris, was experimenting and feeling his way towards a personal style. The exhibition explores how Erró gradually moved away from expressionistic works towards assemblage and collage, for which he has been best known in his later career.

Erró made his first collages, in which he combines drawings with press cuttings, in Jaffa Israel in 1958, but it was in Paris in 1959-60 that he started his pioneering work in transposing collage into painting. But it was not until 1964, when he immersed himself in the flood of pop-culture images in New York, that he developed his systematic method, by which collage became the key to the creation and technique of all his art. The Making of Erró looks back over this evolutionary period of nearly a decade.

The Making of Erró is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue written by Danielle Kvaran, curator of the show, who is a specialist at the Reykjavík Art Museum – Erró Collection.

The exhibition is supported by Alvogen in Iceland, the company has recently bought works by the artist which will be located in the new building of the company in Vatnsmýri.

At the opening of the exhibition, an award will be presented from the Guðmunda S. Kristinsdóttir Art Fund. The Fund, founded by Erró in memory of his aunt, serves to promote and support women’s art. 

The Reykjavík Art Museum is also honoured to present a new exhibition by a young artist, Úlfur Karlsson (b. 1988), in Gallery D at Hafnarhús called We Are Not Afraid. Úlfur studied at the Valand Academy in Göteborg, Sweden, graduating in 2012. He has recently been showing interesting works in Reykjavík’s smaller galleries, and has participated in several group exhibitions, such as Nýmálað/Just Painted at the Reykjavík Art Museum – Hafnarhús earlier this year. Úlfur’s works consist predominantly of powerful, compelling paintings and installations in which multi-layered stories and events give shape to a world which references both reality and fantasy.

Úlfur’s show is one of a series that derives its name from Gallery D at Hafnarhús, which was held in 2007-2011, and is now resuming where it left off. The objective of the D-exhibitions is to showcase artists who have not previously held solo shows in Iceland’s major galleries. Úlfar’s show is the 23rd in the series. Curator is Yean Fee Quay. 

Model-making workshop for 9–12 years old
Reykjavík Art Museum is hosting a model-making workshop for kids from 9–12 years old in connection with the exhibition Katrín Sigurðardóttir: Looking In – Sculptures and Modelsnow on view at Hafnarhús.
The workshop, which is free of charge, will be 26 and 27 October between 9:00 AM and 12:00 NOON at Hafnarhús and is led by Architect Hildur Steinþórsdóttir.

Photo: Berghildur Erla Bernharðsdóttir

 

 

The illumination of the Imagine Peace Tower at Viðey Island 9 October 2015

The Imagine Peace Tower at Viðey Island will be illuminated in a beautiful ceremony on the 9 October, which would have been John Lennon's 75 birthday.

Ferry ride and City Bus

Yoko Ono invites everyone to sail for free to Viðey Island for the ceremony of the illumination of the Imagine Peace Tower with the Viðey Island Ferry.

5:15pm – 7pm: The City Bus is free of charge from Hlemmur bus terminal to Skarfabakki pier and back again and will run every 20 minutes.

5:30pm - 7:20pm: The ferry sails from Skarfabakki pier to Viðey Island.

9pm – Return from Viðey: The ferry will sail from Viðey Island to Skarfabakki pier until everyone have returned from the Island.

The City Bus will run to Hlemmur bus terminal from Skrafabakki pier until the last ferry ride has arrived.

Programme

The programme starts at Viðeyjarnaust near the Imagine Peace Tower and the ceremony‘s host is Felix Bergsson.

5:30pm: Family Lab by Reykjavik Art Museum

6:00pm: A guided tour covering the history of Viðey Island

6:30pm: Music performance by Ólöf Arnalds

7:45pm: The Men's choir of Reykjavik performs at the Imagine Peace Tower 

8:00pm: The illumination of the Imagine Peace Tower

8:30pm - 9:30pm: Friends 4 ever performs at Viðeyjarnaust

Refreshments will be available at Viðeyjarnaust and Viðeyjarstofa. An art exhibition by Kyoko Ono, Yoko Ono's daughter, will be opened at Viðeyjarstofa after the illumination.

ATTENTION – WE ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO DRESS APPROPRIATELY ACCORDING TO WEATHER.

The Imagine Peace Tower

The Imagine Peace Tower is an outdoor work of art conceived by Yoko Ono, located at Viðey Island, honouring the memory of her late husband, John Lennon. Each year, on his birthday, the Imagine Peace Tower is re-lit in a ceremony and beams with a stream of lights high into the sky until it is turned off on the day he died, 8 December. The art piece is a symbol for John and Yoko’s fight for peace. The Imagine Peace Tower has the shape of a wishing well where the words “Imagine Peace” is written in 24 languages, which refers to the song “Imagine” by John Lennon. Yoko Ono invites all guest of the illumination of the Imagine Peace Tower to write their wishes and hang it on one of four wishing trees, which will be located at Viðeyjarstofa and Viðeyjarnaust at Viðey Island and at Reykjavik Art Museum, Hafnarhús, and Visit Reykjavik main office Aðalstræti 2.

More than one million wishes for peace have been delivered from all over the world concerning the Imagine Peace project and the Imagine Peace Tower.

Further information here 

Reykjavik International Film festival 2015

Reykjavik International Film festival, RIFF, takes place every year in late September for eleven days. The festival shows a wide range of dramas and non-fiction films from over 40 countries. The festival highlights independent film making from all over the world with an emphasis on up-and-coming filmmakers. RIFF encourages the interaction of film with other art forms by organizing concerts, photo exhibitions and more.

Over the last few years, RIFF has screened approximately 100 feature films from roughly 40 countries annually.

This year RIFF celebrates its 12th edition. The production team of RIFF is especially proud to be able to present a programme where the ratio of female and male directors is exceptionally positive.

The festival will take place between 25 September and 4 October. 

For further information go to RIFF's homepage.

Reykjavik International Literary Festival

Since its beginning in 1985, the Reykjavík International Literary Festival has been a major celebration of the literary culture, books and authors. The festival dates for 2015 are 9 – 12 September.

The chief purpose of the festival, from the beginning, has been to introduce foreign authors and new trends in literature to Icelandic readers. Since the first festival was held, in 1985, many distinguished writers such as William Styron, Isabel Allende, Seamus Heaney, A.S. Byatt, André Brink, Günter Grass, Haruki Murakami, José Saramago, Kurt Vonnegut, J. M. Coetzee and Herta Müller, have honored us with their attendance. 

Cycle - music and art festival
Bringing together superstars of the creative world such as Olafur Eliasson, Icelandic Love Corporation and Simon Steen Andersen with rising stars such as Eyvind Gulbrandsen, Skark Ensem ble and Pinquins the inaugural Cycle Music and Art Festival will take place this summer between August 13–16 in Kópavogur, Iceland. The festival is a new plat form for exploring and exhi biting the meeting point of creative worlds, producing and pre senting works that reach outside the traditional boundaries of disci pline, craft and process. Pioneering international artists in the fields of new music, performance art, visual arts, sound art and architecture will collaborate and create across a city-wide site with music as a central focus.
 
By introducing existing ideas, sounds, materials and our habitat in a new context, Cycle will seek to redefine the traditional art festival as a site of creation not just consumption. It will experiment with new ways of using the concert hall and museum whilst escaping them to showcase performances and installations in public spaces and found locations. We are aiming to push artists to engage outside of the boundaries imposed by their disciplines with the intention of altering their own and their audience’s perception of their surroundings and in doing find a meaningful alter native to the avant-garde.
 
Cycle Music and Art Festival builds on the foundations laid by The Icelandic Chamber Music Festival. The festivals will run in parallel, encouraging young, classically trained musicians to engage with contemporary art and new music, inter disciplinary works and sustainability. Pro moting the flourishing inter disciplinary music/art scene the festival will bring together musicians, artists, academics and audiences in an exciting city-wide site, where encounters with the familiar are renewed as experimentation and participation take centre stage.

Rainbow street in Reykjavík
.
One of the main streets in downtown Reykjavík has been dressed up in the colors of the rainbow to celebrate Reykjavík Pride which is now held for the seventeenth time. The festival started on Tuesday and ends on Sunday.
 
The rainbow street in Reykjavík is a sign of joy and support for diversity. The initiative is organized by the city of Reykjavík in cooperation with Reykjavík Pride. The rainbow will be there through the six day Reykjavík Pride celebration and onwards until September.
 
Reykjavík Pride is one of many festivals that make Reykjavík a cultural and vibrant festival city all year long. Reykjavík Pride has been held annually since 1999 and it has evolved into a festival that attracts up to 100 thousand guests from all over the world. Reykjavík Pride is one of the biggest events in Iceland and one of the biggest little Prides in the world.
 
Read more about the Reykjavík Pride programme here.
 
Photo by Gunnar Hersveinn

Introducing a new out-door market in Reykjavik this summer

In recent years, the flora of out-door markets in Reykjavik has been encreasing during the summer season. The latest addition is the amazing Bernhöfts Bazaar, which is a new and exciting outdoor market located in downtown Reykjavík. Opening hours on Saturdays from June 20th to July 25th, from 13:00 - 18:00.

Each Saturday the market will have a theme of it´s own; Music, Plants, Skateboards & Bikes, Toys, “Made by Granny” and Art. We highly reccommend you check out this summer market and make sure to enjoy a cold beverage and dance to the tunes of local musicians.

More info: www.bernhoftsbazaar.net  

Even more info: www.facebook.com/bernhoftsbazaar and twitter @BernhoftsBazaar #bbazaar #bernhöftsbazaar #torgibið.

Iceland's largest hotel to open in Reykjavík today

Today is the opening of Fosshotel Reykjavik at Höfðatorg. This will be the largest hotel in Iceland featuring 320 rooms, including 7 top floor suites with stunning bay or city views. The four star hotel is located in Reykjavík’s business district, a short walking distance from Laugavegur, the main shopping street. Over 70 percent of the rooms are booked in June and 85 percent in July.

In addition to the wide variety of room types, the hotel offers the on-site restaurant, Haust (the Icelandic word for autumn), where you can kick back in style and enjoy one of the top restaurants Reykjavik has to offer. The hotel bar, The Beergarden, is also a treat, where you can unwind with Icelandic draught beer and snacks. A great meeting place for beer lovers and foodies alike.

The hotel will also feature eight conference and meeting rooms equipped with all the latest equipment and facilities you need for your conference, business meeting, exhibit etc.

Richard Serra opening tomorrow

Three exhibitions will be opened at Reykjavík Art Museum, Hafnarhús on Thursday 21 May at 5 p.m. Áfangar by Richard Serra, Process and Pretense Magnús Sigurðarson and bears;truths... by Kathy Clark.

The exhibition Áfangar by Richard Serra( b. 1939) in Hafnarhús includes 19 drawings of the environmental work Áfangar made by Serra in 1990 at Viðey Island , in oil pastel on paper, and presented to the National Gallery of Iceland. In addition thirty works of graphic art – etchings and prints – from 1991 are shown. These are in the collection of the Landsbanki bank. Three videos by Sveinn M. Sveinsson (Plús film) are also shown in the exhibition, projected simultaneously onto three walls of C gallery.The bond between the exhibition and the environmental work itself on Viðey Island is underlined by regular ferry services to the island. Guided tours will be available in Hafnarhús and on Viðey every Saturday in June, July and August. Four week-long art/nature courses are also offered for children and youngsters.
 
Richard Serra (b. 1939) is one of the most renowned artists of today. Many leading museums have hosted exhibitions of his work, such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York (2010) and MoMA. His works have twice been shown at the Venice Biennale, and four times at Documenta in Kassell, Germany – and at many, many more venues – for Serra has been called a “giant of modern art.”The exhibition is on the programme of the Reykjavík Arts Festival.Curator is Hafþór Yngvason.
 

Events in connection with the exhibition:

Guided family tours all day Saturday 30 May at Hafnarhús 11 a.m.  and Viðey Island 12:30. Refreshments. The ferry departs from Ægisgarður pier.
Guided tours every Saturday in June, July and August in Hafnarhús at 11 a.m. and Viðey Island at 12.30 p.m.
Reykjavík Culture Night – Saturday 22 August
Graphic workshop for kids in connection with the exhibition.
Week long workshops for kids in Viðey Island 8–12 June, 13–17 July, 20–24 July and 10–14 August. More information: 8640412.
 

Magnús Sigurðarson: Process and Pretense

Process and Pretense is Magnús Sigurðarson (b. 1966) first one-person exhibition in Iceland for many years, having lived in Miami, USA for over a decade. The artist says that he has made the analysis of the obvious his subject; he halts when the everyday presents him with a moment of such banality that it requires further investigation. His works thus have existential overtones, addressing the theme of the human being in his/her solitude, and the constant quest for means of expression and understanding between people. Magnús is best known for photographic series, video art and installations in which he references familiar features of pop culture, the media and general knowledge. In his exhibition at Hafnarhús he addresses the universal human desire for higher things, which may lie hidden anywhere you go. Curator is Markús Þór Andrésson. Programme: Artist’s talk,Saturday 23 May 3 p.m.
 

Kathy Clark: bears; truths…

“bangsavættir / brears; truths…”, is Kathy Clark’s first solo exhibition in an official establishment of Reykjavik. An installation displaying thousands of teddy bears, the artist heavily manipulates these pre-owned toys. At one time fulfilling their fundamental natural objective of companionship to the children of Reykjavik, these soft and cuddly teddies served an important purpose. They were brought to bed and slept with, dragged around, dressed, nurtured and cried to. Sadly, like most things, they eventually lose their usefulness and are abandoned. But now, perhaps they carry an energy from their past owners. If these bears could talk, would they reveal knowledge of their former child?
Clark uses wax on the stuffed bears to achieve a number of effects. She chooses to wrap some bears in thread and dips them in wax to make grotesque distorted forms; with others, she slices them up and empties out their stuffing before pouring hot wax over the limp pelts; and then there are those that she cuts up into pieces, and sews back together. Though never in their original form, the malformed creatures look even more peculiar when she manipulates thick textural wax on their fur. Clark stages each component in an arrangement that dictates an odyssey; repeats symbolically charged icons; and conceives elaborated titles for particular pieces. Her installation radiates a psychological perversion that she has single-mindedly plotted out using a system of her own. The anarchic disarray of stuffed toy bears that are, either singularly or altogether, waxed, tied up, sewn, glued, emptied, mangled—are schemes to conjure and orchestrate memories, including a sense of dejection, abandonment, and neglect.
The journey through the installation takes one through a living room, a cloud covered cemetery, a field of Cairns, a family portrait gallery, bear trees, among many others. Eerily lit with a litany of background sound effects, this environment is a powerful maximalist display of an enigmatic universe meant to invoke recollections of ones’ childhood passage through life.

#visitreykjavik