Thursday, 4th June at 6 p.m. We warmly welcome you to the opening of the exhibitions. Great world by Helga Þorgils Friðjónsson and May show signs of minor defects by Svein Fannar Jóhannsson.

Helgi Þorgils Friðjónsson
Big world

At the exhibition of Helgi Þorgils Friðjónsson, Big world, where a dreamlike reality meets a contemplation on human existence and its relationship with nature, in which man and nature appear as an inseparable whole. The artist's imagery is figurative and narrative, composed of countless symbols. The figures appear in ambiguous yet familiar situations where Icelandic nature, birds, sea creatures, and religious and symbolic elements are interwoven in a lyrical manner. The visual world is both subtle and powerful, and the aesthetics reach beyond the earthly reality. A vast world, where narrative and emotion work together and beauty hovers on the borders of the tangible and the imaginary.
The curator is Aldís Arnardóttir.

For decades, Helgi Þorgils Friðjónsson has been one of the country's most prolific visual artists. From the beginning of his career in the mid-1970s, he attracted attention for an innovative and personal narrative style, which has earned him a unique position in the Icelandic art scene and recognition on the international stage. Over a long career, his imagery has been in constant development, with the human presence at its centre. Helgi Þorgils has exhibited widely around the world since 1974, including representing Iceland at the Venice Biennale in 1990 and in prestigious museums and galleries in Europe and the United States.

Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson
May show signs of minor defects

Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson has long worked with found photographs and other material that has been removed from its original context. We see pictures of couples, of a coastline, of an undecorated Christmas tree. The subjects are familiar, but the coordinates are lost. What is so compelling, however, is not only the melancholy that such lost images carry with them, but also what they bring to light. What binds the works in the exhibition together is their shared focus on context being material, where meaning is created through displacement and framing.
The curator is Daría Sól Andrews.
The exhibition is supported by Norske Billedkunstnere, Norsk Fotografisk Fond and Office for Contemporary Art Norway.

Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson (b. 1977) lives and works in Oslo, Norway. In his work, he works with photography, sculpture, publishing and curation, among other things. He also often deals with the status of the author, documentation and the social meaning of images, for example in the form of exhibitions, books or other printed material. His work explores the relationship between everyday life, the art object and the context created by exhibitions, often weaving together different media and materials within a single piece. He studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig from 2003 to 2009. Since 2012, he has run the independent publishing house Multinational Enterprises.

Free admission – see you at Hafnarborg.