Atlantica - Iceland Review

a SHUTTER STORIES
FACT FILE
Katrín Elvarsdóttir
Born 1964 in Ísafjördur, Iceland
Lives and works in Reykjavík, Iceland
>EDUCATION
1993 Art Institute of Boston, BFA
1990 Brevard Community College
1988 University of Iceland, BA in French
>SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2010 Equivocal The Sequel, Gallerí Ágúst, Reykjavík.
2010 Nowhereland, The Reykjavík Art Museum.
2008 Equivocal, Gallerí Ágúst, Reykjavík.
2008 Home-away, Reykjavík Museum of Photography
2007 Without a trace, The National Museum of Iceland.
2003 Seventh and Second Gallery, Revenants, New York, USA
2002 Akureyri Art Museum, Revenants, Akureyri, Iceland
>BOOKS
2008 Reflection: Icelandic Contemporary Photography
2005 Morar-naervidd with sound by M.Hemstock
THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY
With its magnificent nature and supreme landscapes,
Iceland has long played host to armies
of enthusiastic amateur photographers. Artists
occupying the dark room is a younger phenomenon.
The first fine art photographs in the world
are generally credited to Englishman John
Edwin Mayall, who illustrated the Lord’s Prayer
with his daguerreotypes in 1851. In Iceland,
a professional photography association was
founded in 1926, but the medium was principally
connected to journalism and advertising.
It took until the 1960s before a group of artists
called SÚM, influenced by Fluxus and Dadaism,
introduced the use of photography in artistic
expression.
“The approach to art photography is different
in Iceland compared to many other countries
as there’s a lack of tradition,” says Jóhanna
Gudrún Árnadóttir from the Reykjavík Museum
of Photography. Owned by the city, it currently
holds a collection of five million or so
photographs. The National Museum also has a
photography department, and independent galleries
occasionally exhibit photography. But the
market remains small for photographic works.
“If you want to collect photography, now is a
good time to buy,” Katrín Elvarsdóttir smiles.
Several years behind its Nordic and European
neighbors, the field is unknown within the local
sphere, lacking written sources and infrastructure.
Photography has only been taught as a
trade at schools, and only during the last 10
years have private schools started to offer studies
in artistic photographic expression.
But things are about to turn. The 2010
Reykjavík Arts Festival, focusing on art photography,
was a landmark in the development of
the craft. A dedicated photo festival, initiated by
the Reykjavík Museum of Photography, in collaboration
with the Reykjavík Tourist authorities,
is in the plans for 2011.
The artists themselves have taken action too.
Founded in 2007, the Icelandic Contemporary
Photography Association ICPA aims to create
a forum for discussing and exploring the photographic
medium as an art form. “With the eight
founding members we all had the same goal: we
wanted to exhibit more and get the work out
there,” says Elvarsdóttir, “Just a couple of years
more, and we’ll be getting there.”
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