Speak Nearby at Gerdarsafn, Kopovogur Museum, Iceland
The In, With and Between Us
Gerdarsafn, Kopovogur Museum, Iceland
June 3–August 20, 2017
gerdarsafn.kopavogur.is
The In, With and Between Us is a group exhibition curated by Malene Dam that invites Gerður Helgadóttir (IS, 1928-75), the pioneering Icelandic sculptor for whom the museum is named, into an ongoing conversation between Ragnheiður Gestsdóttir (IS), Theresa Himmer (DK/IS) and Emily Weiner (US).
This exhibition asks us how we have conversations across time and contexts. How do we relate to one another? What do we share? What do we carry with us and what lies between us?
Questions of temporality, representation, translation and history writing took on a very concrete challenge in three new commissions made especially from this prompt, all with the life and work of Gerður Helgadóttir in mind.
Instead of approaching the exhibition from a hierarchal, art historical model of influence, we tried to meet Gerður as a peer, as a conversation partner. But how do you have an equal and reciprocal conversation when one of you is no longer here, yet has left a body of work so diverse and complex, and so unfinished?
We needed to meet Gerður somewhere in-between here and there, in the middle, where she could also meet us and read the work back to us. Each artist had their own process and conversation with Gerður and her works.
Catalog (PDF)