GAY PRIDE CELEBRATION: Saturday August 6th
Last year’s Gay Pride Celebration brought in a reported 40,000 visitors, though from our office, downtown Reykjavík looked a good deal more packed than that. As local author And
Soft Colours with Bruising:
“They asked me in Stykkishólmur if I was getting good motivation from the mountains,” Þórdís Aðalsteinsdóttir tells me, as we stand before a softly menacing painting of a
GRAPEVINE, GISP!, Gallery Lobster or Fame and JPV Publishers Present:Comics in a Bomb Shelter
Comics and large concrete subterranean rooms: ah sweet sweet nostalgia. Of course, few of those involved in the exhibits adorning the walls at the Lobster or Fame Gallery below the
Nei! sagði litla skrímslið (No! said the little monster)
In keeping with our never-ending thirst for Icelandic literature, we dove headfirst into this lauded tome. Nei! won the Bookstore Worker’s Literary Prize in 2004 and was publishe
How To View the Woodcarver
After reviewing Jón Adólf Steinsson’s work, one can’t help asking: is it craft, or is it art? In my opinion, the answer lies very much in the viewer. Take “The […]
The Grapevine Presents A Spoken Word Creation Written for, But Not Performed by, the President of Iceland During the 61st Celebration of Iceland’s Independence, at Austurvöllur, Reykjavík, June 17th 2005.
Fellow citizens. It was on a rainy day 61 years ago that the youthful visionaries of an old nation came together on Þingvellir and declared Iceland’s independence. Vigorously ha
Gullpensillinn (The Gold Brush)
The main space of the gallery, with its high, white walls and spacious windows, is an ideal space for showing work. On the other hand, one smaller room in the […]
Sound of Money
Description: 1) Four or five separate spaces in one house are all filled with painful noises of fish factories, reproduced through speakers in all corners. All the spaces utilized
Snúður skiptir um hlutverk (Snúður changes roles)
There are better ways to learn Icelandic than shelling out fistfuls of cash to attend classes. You can watch English language television, for example, and follow the Icelandic text
The Saga of Guðríður
There are plenty of famous men in the Icelandic Sagas, from future brewer Egill Skallagrímsson to future comic strip cat Gréttir the Strong. Yet no one will be naming a […
Dieter Roth
Taking the Dieter Roth train is a trip through the essence of art. All is art, everything Dieter did was an expression of art and the train trip takes you […]
Preaching History
Most of the Icelanders who migrated to North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries went to Canada. But about 400 Icelanders travelled to Utah, following Mormon missiona
Never Poke Your Partner
Sword Fights to Slapstick Although stage fighting sounds like a form of martial arts, it actually has nothing to do with self-defence. Stage fighting is the art of physical conflic
Within the Belly of the beast – America vs. America
We are witnessing liberal rights being chipped away to protect us from hidden enemies. In the USA of today, many outspoken artists are experiencing for the first time since the [&h
God is Corruption Funny
Brace yourself: the cast of Spaugstofan (the Joke Office) is up there with the Goons, the Monty Python Crew, and the original Saturday Night Live cast. The five-member cast has [&h
Comics: Closer than First-Person
I have always had a weakness for comics. My newest favourites are graphic novels that recite history. Just read three books on this subject. They have a common thread, life [&helli
If God Were a Poet, He Would Have Created This World
Walking between the massive mountains of concrete in the dark, spotting small colourful glass creatures between them, looking as if they were crawling slower than snails towards th
KLINK & BANK’S FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY: Relevant as Ever
You had to find it at random, but I wandered into one small room to find a menu hanging on the wall was different songs you could order from the […]
Lights within the Bog of Cats
“Mýrarljós” is loosely based on a play by Euripides called “Medea”; however, you don’t really have to know anything about the original tragedy in order to enjoy “Mýr
A UNIQUE LIFE – A UNIQUE MUSEUM
It was raining heavily and the rain turning into sleet when I arrived at Glúfrasteinn, the home of the late Halldór Laxness and his family, recently turned into a museum. [&helli
Echoes of the PastEchoes of the Future
A woollen raincoat cased in transparent plastic, ice cubes in the shape of Iceland, (Klakinn, as they call it), a sphere of lava as a mobile dwelling for hidden people. […]