Thursday, 27th August at 8 p.m. We welcome you to the opening of two new exhibitions at Hafnarborg, but this time we are presenting the museum's autumn exhibition of 2026., the forecast, curated by Katrín Björg Gunnarsdóttir and Úlfur Bragi Einarsson, and Aurora Borealis, which features works by Frosti Fjalar.
The prophecy
Hafnarborg's Autumn Exhibition 2026
The focus is on the exhibition space itself and its role in curation – on the possibilities that lie in the unseen or the forgotten, in the void that is in fact never empty. The architecture thus not only frames the works but also becomes an active part in shaping the exhibition. Conventional exhibition design often focuses on central points and the viewer's line of sight, but here the emphasis is placed specifically on the periphery, where the nooks, crannies and other less prominent surfaces of the gallery space are brought to the fore and given added importance in the overall experience of the exhibition.
In the exhibition, six artists are in direct dialogue with the gallery space. They work with different media but all have in common that they engage with the space, whether through material, concept or installation. Thus, space itself becomes the subject of the exhibition, both as a physical space and a concept.
The artists are Daniel Ágúst Ágústsson, Gabi Schillig, Hildur Elísa Jónsdóttir, Iyo Hasegawa, Joe Keys and Shiori Ono. The curators are Katrín Björg Gunnarsdóttir and Ulfur Bragi Einarsson.
Frosti Fjalar Aurora Borealis
The exhibition features a selection of works by Frosti Fjalar, an artist who for decades worked on his art in solitude. Frosti, formerly Jakob Jónsson, had a long and unique career spanning more than half a century. After an active period of exhibitions in the 1970s and 1980s, he withdrew and took part in neither exhibitions nor was he active in public life or within the art community. Despite this, he continued to work with great dedication and built up an extensive collection of works. Over his long career, his visual language was characterised by a keen sense of form, disciplined composition and a strong sense of colour.
The curator is Ásdís Spanó.
Frosti Fjalar (1936-2026) studied art in Copenhagen, first at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek and later at the Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, in addition to which he completed a degree in civil engineering from KTH in Stockholm. After his last exhibition in 1991, he disappeared from the public eye but continued to create with singular determination. He is survived by nearly six thousand watercolours and around eight hundred paintings. Frosti Fjalar passed away while the exhibition was being prepared, placing his death in a new and deeper context for the project. Aurora Borealis brings this remarkable life's work to light once again and invites the audience into the artist's disciplined, colourful and captivating rhythmic world.
