Morgunbladid 26. mai 2002


An Oath to Loneliness


Björk Guðnadóttir´s show is light and quiet, moderate to the point that you could experience the work without seeing anything at all.  If curious enough, - or initiated, as ill routed tongues would choose to call those who have a healthy interest, trying to label art as a special interest for those who work with and make art, union of art workers - opens a vision of our dear community/society  of which we lack perspective to understand the situation of our existence.

Björk exposes in a simple way peoples isolation from each other in our hyper individualist modern society where communication and contacts take place indirect in window-envelopes, brochures and junk mail of any kind.

It´s in badly lit entrance halls of block of flats that sudden rendezvous between inhabitants occur, on their way to and from work. The case is that, that kind of communication is totally controlled by the clock and working hours.  On their way pausing to check the postbox.  But regrettably most mail is like instructions in an endless game of darts.

Bills send us to the bank, taxbill to the tax collector and advertising flyers to the superstores. Thats how the game is played to influence our lives.

But why look with burning flame through a magnifyingglass in the darkened entrancehall?  The only plausible answer to that question is that Björk is calling for direct, human communication, something which is decreasing in the life of the  superimposed and overorganised modern human being, even as we live closer to each other than ever before in history.

Therefore an unawaited surprise in the form of a delivery in the mailbox, or an unexpected chat with another person of flesh and blood, could brake up the deterministic adventureless everyday life.  That kind of luck could make for a holy moment, annunciation and redemption.

As there is so little of such social investigation in Icelandic art, Björk Guðnadóttirs exhibition must stand for the most interesting shows at Gallery@hlemmur.is this year.

Halldór Björn Runólfsson.