Parallel Dimensions I / II at The Nordic Embassies - Felleshus in Berlin
The exhibition Parallel Dimensions I / II brings together 17 leading contemporary Icelandic artists and their works to highlight a diversity of media and materials. Open for just over a month; the exhibition is a fantastic opportunity for Berliners to experience Icelandic art.
The focus is on artists who push and defy the boundaries of art, technology, and science. They support and promote systems, experiment with time and space, and inventive uses of new materials. The results of such experiments are works that elicit different worlds, for example, based on calculations, measurability, and associated overlap between fields. Parallel Dimensions is a two-part exhibition. Part One opens in February 2022, and Part Two in January 2023. In Part One of the exhibition, the three artists include Hrafnkell Sigurðsson, María Dalberg, and Ragnar Kjartansson.
Resolution
In Resolution, (2020), Hrafnkell Sigurðsson enlarges a pixel of a photo taken in deep space from the Hubble telescope of a well-known galaxy the way it looked millions of years ago—the light having just reached us. Resolution dives deeper into this ancient light to see new colors and patterns. A simple enlargement of the blank space between galaxies shows the absolute pitch blackness of space. Without any discernible forms, tiny areas were picked and then zoomed in between the pixels. With photo editing tools, Hrafnkell distinguishes particular areas to elicit outlines where none were visible before. These outlines were then sharpened and saturated to define colors and shapes.
Uncontainable Truth
The film Uncontainable Truth (2021) by María Dalberg investigates the stories—and fates—of five unmarried, working Icelandic women in the 16th-19th centuries who were defendants due to Dulsmál. These were criminal cases in which a woman hid her pregnancy and the birth of her child. The child either died of exposure to the elements or negligence. Dalberg works with embodied history to channel the words of these women lost to time. Dalberg's film is taken from five testimonials of 16th-19th century women and seeks to give them back their voices. The film brings their names to light from old manuscripts and other contemporary sources.
Figures in Landscape
In Figures in Landscape (2018), Ragnar Kjartansson celebrates the humanist spirit as a child of his time. With a hint of irony, Kjartansson takes full advantage of the technological advances that make this enormous video work possible. The complete work comprises seven different scenes, each 24-hours long, that takes an entire week to view! Each scene unfolds in an archetypal landscape, like a detailed computer screen saver, but as hand-painted film sets. Man is confronted with nature but does little more than wander around and rest, waiting for a heroic deed that will never arrive. Viewers can use the work to mark time or situate themselves at different moments in the day to reflect on their own fates'.
Parallel Dimensions is organized by The Embassy of Iceland in Berlin and Ásdís Spanó curates the exhibition.
Opening hours of the exhibition:
Monday to Friday: 13:00 – 19:00 I Saturday, Sunday, and holidays: 11:00 – 16:00
Free entry. No registration is required. Hygiene access regulations: FFP2 mask and 2G (access for vaccinated and recovered).
Guided Tours:
Opening day 10 February at 13:00 / 14:00 / 15:00 / 16:00
Weekly from 15 February–25 March on Tuesday and Friday at 10:00 / 11:00 / 13:00 / 14:00
Registration required via Eventbrite. More in the exhibition website below.
A guided tour is for free.
Hygiene access regulations: FFP2 mask and 2G-plus (access for vaccinated and recovered with a negative test, except for those with booster vaccination)