Opnun – Hugrenningar og Vatnsins streymi

Opening – The only way around is through and Breathing Water

Thursday November 12th at 6 p.m., we welcome you to the opening of two new exhibitions at Hafnarborg, where we present The only way around is through by Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson and Breathing Water by Beili Liu. At the opening, Styrmir Örn will also present a new performance, which will subsequently be shown as a video work in the exhibition.

Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson: The only way around is through

The exhibition The only way around is through brings together two strands that have characterised Styrmir Örn’s artistic practice from the outset: drawing and performance. In his drawings, the artist works like a craftsman, methodically and within the fixed confines of the picture plane. In his performances, however, he is more akin to a gardener, allowing his surroundings and the atmosphere to determine the course of events. The exhibition presents large-scale drawings produced over the past ten years, suspended from the ceiling of the gallery to form an installation around which visitors can move. The installation also provides the setting for the artist’s performance, as Styrmir Örn sets out to bring together the contrasting approaches of drawing and performance by finding a meeting point between the still and the dynamic.

Curated by Heiðar Kári Rannversson.

Styrmir Örn Guðmundsson (b. 1984) works with performance, drawing, sculpture and music, bringing different media and forms together in a single narrative. What begins as a drawing on paper may develop into a sculpture or a piece of music, which in turn becomes material for a performance. Styrmir Örn studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and completed his postgraduate studies at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam in 2012. His work has been widely exhibited in recent years, both in Iceland and internationally.

Beili Liu: Breathing Water

Water is a connective force in Beili Liu’s work, moving between rivers and oceans, distant shores and the materials carried between them. In Breathing Water, Liu brings together works emerging from her ongoing artistic research in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, exploring the interconnectedness and fragility of our relationship with the natural environment. The exhibition centres on her installation of the same name, in which fragments of ocean plastic gathered along distant shorelines have been washed, weathered and worn by the elements. Carried by currents across great distances, they also show how deeply human activity has affected the planet and its ecosystems.

Curated by Hólmar Hólm.

Beili Liu is a Chinese-born American visual artist based in Austin, Texas, where she is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has been exhibited extensively internationally and she has received numerous fellowships and awards for her artistic practice. Liu was an artist-in-residence at Hafnarborg from December 2023 to January 2024, as part of her wider artistic research across Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Her return to the museum coincides with the 40th anniversary of Hafnarborg’s artist residency, the oldest of its kind in Iceland.

Free entry – see you at Hafnarborg.