Hafnarborg's Autumn Exhibition 2019: Everything at the Same Time

The Art Council of Hafnarfjörður has selected the exhibition Everything at the same time as the 2019 autumn exhibition of Hafnarborg, curated by Andreu Arnarsdottir and Starkaðar Sigurðarsonar. The idea behind the exhibition is to explore how artists deal with the freedom found in visual art today. How meaning can be created from art, which can be anything – a painting, a child's toy, papier-mâché, a movement, an idea, an opera, plaster. Works in various media will be exhibited, from oil painting to performance art, in an attempt to unite the fragmented ideas found in contemporary visual art.

The exhibition does not attempt to create a snapshot or an overview of what art is today, but rather explores how the artists, faced with this freedom, shape meaning from it. How art can take on any form but always speaks the same language. How an oil painting on a wall in a home is the same art, part of the same art history, as mushrooms that can be grown in a bright, white gallery space. How art – and art history – is a compressed phenomenon where everything exists at the same time.

Each year, Hafnarborg calls for proposals for the museum's autumn exhibition with the aim of selecting a curator to collaborate with, who submits an interesting exhibition proposal, whilst also bringing new people into the mix. This ensures special consideration is given to providing opportunities for curators with a short career history. The Art Council of Hafnarborg, together with the director, reviews the applications and selects the winning proposal each year.

With its autumn exhibition series, Hafnarborg aims to create a channel for interesting ideas, with the aim of the museum being a platform where art can flourish, shaped by diverse perspectives and themes. The exhibitions and the symposia organised alongside them have created a significant platform for discussion and development at Hafnarborg.

Andrea Arnarsdóttir studied Applied Cultural Media at the University of Iceland and received an MA degree from the school in 2018. Her final project, the exhibition Surplus at the University of Iceland, attracted considerable attention. After graduating, Andrea undertook an internship at the Artipelag art museum in Stockholm. There, she gained insight into museum work and the duties of a curator, as well as working closely with the institution's education manager.

Starkaður Sigurðarson has a background in both visual art and writing, but after graduating from the Iceland Academy of the Arts, he completed an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College in the spring of 2018. He has exhibited throughout Iceland, most recently in the Nýlistasafnsins summer exhibition, Deep pressure in 2018, but has also written art criticism for Víðsjá, numerous texts for artists and museums, as well as being the editor of the art magazine Stara.

A list of participants will be published later.

Further information is provided by: Hólmar Hólm, Public Relations Officer for Hafnarborg, tel. 585 5793