Main Gallery
26.08. – 22.09.2006
Exhibition of former artists in residence.
Taurus : a criticism of an attitude.
Gauthier Hubert was born in May 1967, the son of André Hubert and Marie-Gislaine Vandermijnsbruggen.
He came to Iceland for the first time in 1995. Since then the Icelanders that he hangs out with all call him Gutti in order to avoid the problems they encounter when trying to pronounce his name.
Guttormur Andrason is exhibiting a narrative installation at Skaftfell, Seydisfjordur, which concentrates on the first words he heard about Iceland: « The strongest men are Icelanders »!
By translating his name following the etymological logic inherent in the Icelandic language yet still retaining his foreigner status, the artist brings an ironic insight into those first words he heard reflecting the pride of Icelandic men. He also achieves a no less theatrical impact with the goal he sets himself through this installation.
A huge bull called Guttormur, painted on the wall of the gallery, overlooks 3 drawings, which in turn look at him. Each of them represents the will to possess by force without ever achieving it. These are images of « the failure of the outsider Â, which belong to a series of works which Gauthier Hubert began in 2004 and which will come to a conclusion in two years time. In each of these the artist represents an outsider, a despot, a dictator, in a symbolic situation trying to acquire power but never achieving his aim.
By showing this attempt by the outsider to become Icelandic « by force » (in its double meaning of physical force and moral force  by changing his name) Gauthier Hubert criticises this desire to want to become ! We cannot become someone, we are born someone.
No matter what games we play.
Murmur
Guðný Rósa´s domestic installations give the impression of an environment where time has been slowed down, almost to a complete standstill. They are interiors where time is internalized, tenses are transcended and the past has become as important as the present. The wallpaper enhances the sense of timelessness with its perfectly regular and repetitive pattern, which gives every imprint equal value to the point of invisibility in contrast to the tree growing out of it.
But beware of the wallpaper and its soothing effect, for its pattern also works as a camouflage, an ideal area in which to hide a secret; perhaps a purloined letter; a message, possibly of the utmost importance. Vuillard, for instance, often saw his models swallowed up by the all-embracing pattern of the wallpaper, to the point where their faces were the only part he could save from the maze. Linguistically such a pattern may be just the ideal reflection of Lacan´s structured unconscious; a system so generic in its repetitious design that it is only by careful scrutiny that the spectator becomes aware of any discrepancy.
As wit Lacan´s unconscious, Guðný Rósa´s installations-drawings, wallpaper, small objects, knitting, auditive excerpts and textual elements-seem to bee structured as a language. Her works whisper to us from all corners of the walls like the pillars in Baudelaire´s temple. It is for us to extract meaning from these given fragments; attempt a reconstruction of scattered unity by finding correlatives of significance in the exquisite collection of images and objects, which often look as if they were parts and the remains of larger units.
What makes such an attempt a considerable feat is the fact that some of the fragments seem to originate from internal sources of the body-intestinal systems, although the material might derive from textile. They add to the emotional poetry of delicate utterance, which lurks behind each part of a given clue. Guðný Rósa´s installations are, however composed of works, which separately contain sufficient independent qualities to figure as pars pro toto, individual stars set free from their constellations. As such they speak of care and sensitivity in the handling of the smallest part. Therefore it may be necessary to release each entity from the installation as a whole, in order to appreciate fully its most fragile detail. This is bound to add a new temporal dimension to Guðný Rósa´s richly endowed display.
Halldór Björn Runólfsson