Past exhibitions
Erró – Portrett
28 May 2009 – 29 August 2010
The year 2009 will be dedicated to the Erró Collection, an invaluable gift presented to Reykjavik City in 1989 by the artist himself. Hafnarhús will host special exhibitions and various happenings over the year.
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Coloursynthesis
15 January – 11 April
Vivid colours and spontaneous structure characterize the paintings of the young Icelandic artists exhibited here.
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D15 - Dodda Maggý
15 January - 21 February 2010
Lucy is a video and music installation by Dodda Maggý (1981), the 15th artist to exhibit in the D-gallery project. In Lucy the artist explores the idea of the “acousmetre,” a film character portrayed only by voice, never in body, omniscient and ubiquitous.
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Erró – Astronauts
15 January - 14 March 2010
In the 1970s, intrigued by man’s excursions into outer space, Erró turned his attention to space voyages and astronauts. After some experimentation with astronauts as pictorial subjects, he had an opportunity to visit NASA’s base in Houston, Texas.
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Erró – Portrett - Women from North Africa
18 March – 23 May 2010
In the early 1980s Erró created many series of collages and paintings presenting gorgeous young women from North Africa in the nude or lightly swathed. These images derive from a large collection of postcards found by Erró and his friend Jean-Jacques Lebel at a Paris fleamarket.
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In the Collection of Imperfection - Unnar Örn J. Auðarson
20 May - 29 August 2010
Unnar Örn’s installation is constructed around a collection of artefacts borrowed from the storage rooms of the Reykjavik City Museum, Museum of Photography and Municipal Archives.
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D16 Katrín Elvarsdóttir
25 February - 11 April 2010
Katrín has been using camera as her main tool to communicate her artistic viewpoints.
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Nudes – Gary Schneider
15 May - 27 August
Photographer Gary Schneider, born in South Africa in 1954, lives and works in New York. The exhibition consists of 30 life-size portraits of nude men and women that Schneider has photographed using an unusual technique.
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Erró - Collage
18 September 2010 - 21 August 2011
The exhibition offers, for the first time, an opportunity to discover a holistic selection of Erró‘s collages from Reykjavik Art Museum‘s Erró collection.
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Erró - Portrett - Dolls
28 May - 29 August 2010
Dolls are not a common theme in the history of art. Thus Erró took a surprising turn at the end of the 1980s when he started making collages, and later paintings, focussing on pictures of old dolls of the pre-war era.
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Iceland Academy of the Arts – Final Thesis Exhibitions 2010
24 April - 9 May 2010
A cooperative project of the Reykjavik Art Museum and the Iceland Academy of the Arts: students from the visual arts and design departments show their final projects.
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Vanitas, Still-life in Contemporary Icelandic Art
20 May – 29 August 2010
An exhibition of contemporary paintings and sculptures that count as still-life but were not originally presented as such.
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D17 Magnús Helgason
9 September - 24 October 2010
Works that are pleasing to the eye and go straight to the heart of the spectator are predominant in the mind of the artist Magnús Helgason. Magnús is the seventeenth artist to exhibit in the D-Gallery of Hafnarhús.
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Indian Highway – Contemporary Indian Video Art
9 September - 10 Oktober 2010
The overall theme of the exhibition, Indian Highway, involves reflections on the road’s significance for movement, development, and migration, the road as the crucial link between town and country.
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Mel Ramos
18 September - 7 November
This Mel Ramos exhibition has been made possible by the most generous donation of Ernst Hilger, gallerist in Vienna. It includes 30 recent editions of lithographs and high quality silkscreens , created by the American artist between 1996 and 2009.
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Gardar Eide Einarsson – Power has a Fragrance
21 October 2010 – 9 January 2011
The dual theme of authority and rebellion is a departure point for Gardar Eide Einarsson’s visually hermetic, mostly black and white paintings, carefully constructed sculptures, photographs, videos, flags and flyers. Drawing heavily on graffiti, skateboarding and punk music, he engages with alternative and abject cultures in order to unsentimentally address the workings of contemporary society from within its anomalous manifestations.
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D18 – Bjarni massi
4 November 2010 – 9 January 2011
Reykjavik Art Museum brings attention to promising artists with a series of exhibitions in D-Gallery, series which won the DV culture award last year. Common to all of these artists is the fact that none of them have had an exhibition in any of the major galleries in the country and their works are specifically created for this space.
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Erró Collage Competition
13 November 2010 - 9 January 2011
The purpose of the collage competition is to increase understanding and knowledge of collages, as well as interest in collages as an art form, among the general public and students alike. The competition revolves around making collages from found materials, i.e. newspapers, magazines, books and other published and two-dimensional material.
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Kjarval – Key Works
27 January – 16 December
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Högna Sigurðardóttir – Matter and Spirit in Architecture
7 November 2009 – 28 February 2010
This first retrospective of the works of architect Högna Sigurðardóttir is prompted by the occasion of her eightieth birthday and the precious donation of her works to the Museum. The first woman to practice architecture in Iceland, Högna Sigurðardóttir has not been shy to try innovations in her work.
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Steinunn
21 November 2009 – 31 January 2010
With timeless design and discerning professional sense, Steinunn Sigurðardóttir has established her place as a world-class designer. Her artistic creation builds on years of collaboration with many renowned contemporary designers and a rare knowledge of material texture and three-dimensional shaping.
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Stoneworks
21 November 2009 – 31 January 2010
Stoneworks is an educational and family oriented workshop in the North Gallery in conjunction with Steinunn Sigurðardóttir‘s exhibition.
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Watery Hues: A Survey of Icelandic Watercolours
12 February - 2 May
More than fifty artists display nearly two hundred works in water colour in the exhibition Watery Hues. The exhibition is the first of its kind, spanning the 130 year history of water colour painting in Iceland, from 1880 – 2009.
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Kjarval – Insights: Warrior Maidens and Ships of Fancy
30 January – 9 May
The drawings and sketches in the Reykjavík Art Museum’s Kjarval collection number in the thousands. In recent months Reykjavík Art Museum has been making these works available in digital form to facilitate research on Kjarval’s oeuvre and a closer examination of specific subjects in his work.
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Water and Colour
12 February – 2 May 2010
An educational, family-oriented and open workshop in the North Gallery
in conjunction with the exhibition Watery Hues.
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The Will as a Weapon - Review 1970 – 1980
4 September - 7 November 2010
The so-called women‘s decade left a significant mark on the history of Iceland. This turning point is remembered in the exhibition by works from more than twenty Icelandic women.
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Camera Obscura in northgallery
4 July - 22 August 2010
Camera Obscura (darkened room) is a certain illusion or an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings through a hole on one side of the room. Light from an external scene passes throuhg the hole and strikes a surface inside where it is reproduced, upside-down, but with colour and perspective preserved.
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New Acquisitions 2006 – 2010
20 November 2010 – 23 January 2011
Donations and purchases of artwork have brought about the major part of the 800 works which have been added to the collection of the Reykjavik Art Museum in the last five years.
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Why collect artworks?
20 November 2010 – 23 January 2011
An educational, family- oriented open workshop in the North Gallery in conjunction with the New Acquisitions’ exhibition.
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Rhyme - Works by Ásmundur Sveinsson and contemporary artists
2 May 2009 – 18 April 2010
The sculptor Ásmundur Sveinsson was a 20th century man shaped by the 19th century.
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Reykjavik Art Museum Ásmundarsafn “I choose blossoming women …” Woman as Symbol in the Art of Ásmundur Sveinsson
1 May 2010 - 17 April 2011
Many of Ásmundur Sveinsson’s works of art depict women – from loving mothers to domestic labourers, from sensitive souls to wild ogresses.
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Thoughts in forms
18 April 2012
In the pyramid Ásmundur’s studio has been recreated, to give an idea of his working environment in Sigtún. In a reading room, visitors can learn more about the artist’s life and work.
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Sleep Light – Ráðhildur Ingadóttir
20 May 2010 — 17 April 2011
The installation Sleep Light by Ráðhildur Ingadóttir comprises the dome of the Ásmundarsafn art museum, the sound of the space, a computer, a hand mirror, light projection and a shadow.
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