Curator talk with Daria Sól Andrews
June 29th 2025 at 2:00 PM
A PLACE presents a group exhibition of six international artists brought together in 2022 during an artist residency at Bær Art Center in Höfðaströnd in Skagafjörður, Iceland. The artists are, Barbara Ellmann, Jóna Þorvaldsdóttir, Mike Vos, Katia Klose, Debbie Westergaard Tuepah, and Markus Baenziger. The exhibition A PLACE, at Listasafn Árnesinga is a sort of second edition and continuing exploration of this original residency experience from 2022, exploring the lasting connections, influences, and new impressions formed in the practices of each artist as a result of this residency and exhibition.
The artists spent two weeks together at the residency together. A strong connection and a whole formed between these different individuals, and works were created that functioned as a kind of storyline and a connection to the local community. Separate but intertwined artworks were created about each artist’s individual experience of nature, culture and place.
Curator talk with Pari Stave
July 5th 2025 at 3:00 PM
Pari Stave is a curator, art historian, and museum administrator. She is the head curator for exhibitions at the National Gallery of Iceland, and the former director of Skaftfell Art Center. Prior to moving to Iceland in 20023, she worked for nine years in the department of modern and contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Pari Stave is the curator of Among Gods and Mortals: Icelandic Artists in Varanasi with artists: Einar Falur Ingólfsson, Eygló Harðardóttir, Guðjón Ketilsson, Margrét H. Blöndal, Sigurður, Árni Sigurðsson, Sólveig Aðalsteinsdóttir.
Come and join us for this talk at 3PM on 5th of July.
Time, and space in which to work are two essential conditions for creativity. For visual artists, the studio is a sanctuary, a personal realm for contemplation and industry. This exhibition is the result of a project that posed the question: What happens when artists are transported to a studio far away from the comfort zone of the familiar?
Among Gods and Mortals offers a view into the experience of six accomplished and well-established Icelandic artists whose works shown here were conceived in connection with recent stays at Kriti Gallery and Anandvan Residency, in Varanasi, India. Situated in a verdant garden in a private enclave, the residency compound comprises individual studios with sleeping accommodations and a common dining room – all within one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in human history. The residency is at once a workplace and base camp for excursions into the many-layered worlds of Varanasi (also called Banaras), the spiritual city known in the Hindu faith as the “abode of the gods,” with its many temples and shrines devoted to fervent worship. Varanasi is a city of extremes, of the endless parade of life teeming in the streets and the solemn mourning of the dead at the cremation pyres along the sacred Ganges River.
Photographer and writer Einar Falur Ingólfsson was the first of the six artists to travel to Varanasi, in 1999. His friend, the Indian photographer Dayanita Singh, later introduced him to Navneet Raman and Petra Manefeld (gracious hosts and founders, in 2007, of Kriti Gallery), and Ajay Pandey, the learned historian who guides the artist in residence through the city, inflecting the tours with insights into India’s culture. Eventually, over the course of several return visits, Einar Falur got the idea to bring a group of artists from Iceland to Kriti to see what might emerge from their time spent in the holy city.
It is hard to imagine two more disparate landscapes and cultures than those of Iceland and India. On the one hand there is Iceland, located in the sub-Arctic, sparsely populated, geographically and historically remote, and of relative cultural homogeneity; and India, on the other hand, bordering on tropical latitudes, densely populated, ancient, and layered with a complex history at the cross-roads of diverse cultural influences.
The Icelanders who traveled to Varanasi were following in the footsteps of a long line of artists seeking inspiration and enlightenment there. Yet their purpose was not to illustrate or interpret what they found; rather, it was to allow the intense sensorial experience of the travel to India to wash over them, to see where it might lead within their own practices.
Ilana Halperin talks about her works.
19 July 2025 at 1:00 PM
Primer / Felt Event
Dr Catriona McAra, Lecturer in Art History at University of Aberdeen chairs a discussion between artist Ilana Halperin and Dr Claire Cousins, Reader in Earth Sciences at University of St Andrews. Spotlighting women’s contributions to planetary geology, they have recently undertaken fieldtrips to Orkney and Iceland in search of local “kin” to creatively understand the rock formations of distant Mars. Following collaborative field work in the geothermal streams above Hveragerði, they are excited to return to share their findings! For this occasion, they will also launch a limited edition etching by Ilana entitled ‘We Are All Extremophiles’. This event serves as a prologue to ‘An Anatomy of Mars’, Ilana’s upcoming exhibition opening at the LÁ Art Museum on September 13th, 2025. All welcome.
This research has been funded by UK Space Agency/ Science & Technology Facilities Council.
Jazz concert on August 14th at 4:30 PM
Exciting Jazz concert during the Blooming Days at the Museum,
The quartet of guitarist Ómar Einarsson, along with Kjartan Valdemarsson, Jón Rafnsson and Erik Qvick will perform at the Museum, but they have been widely present in the Icelandic music scene in recent years. The program will include well-chosen works by, among others, Ornette Coleman, John Abercrombie, Victor Young, Pat Metheny and others. It is not unlikely that original material will also be on the program.
Ómar Einarsson guitar
Kjartan Valdemarsson piano
Jón Rafnsson bass
Erik Qvick drums
The concert is offered by Hveragerðisbær
August 15th at 4:00 PM
Come and participate in a drum and dance workshop with Dans Afríka at Blooming Days in Hveragerði.
Registration is required as space is limited.
listasafn@listasafnarnesinga.is
Free program offered by Hveragerði Town and LÁ Art Museum
August 16th at 3:00 PM
On August 16th at 3:00 PM, there will be a unique event, a concert by artists: Þuríður Sigurðardóttir, singer, with Borgar Magnason, composer and double bassist, and Óskar Guðjónsson, saxophonist.
This select group will delight guests of Blooming days at the museum, where love and creativity reign supreme.
Elísabet Jökulsdóttir will also perform and read poetry.
Free event and everyone is welcome.
Don’t let a chance pass you by.
The event is hosted by Hveragerðisbær.