/ CREATION / DESTRUCTION / is the title for the exhibition of Sequences X which takes place at The Living Art Museum and Kling & Bang at The Marshall House. The title seeks inspiration in the lecture of artist Sigurður Guðmundsson, TIME, from 1969, and can be found in the festival’s catalogue:
The phenomenon of time is important in all art. Art is a very suitable means of travelling in time and space. The first paths to a new time usually run through works of art.
We perceive new art and in this way see a new world which is not a dream but reality. We forsake the old world, apart from a few things which are called cultural baggage or preserved works of art. From these we can always see where we have been.
Time destroys all things, but what perhaps stays the longest are the traces of the human spirit, the evidence of truth: art.
Sigurdur Gudmundsson
November 1969
Lecture Norræna Húsið, Reykjavik
Andreas Brunner (b. 1988) was born in Zurich, Switzerland and is currently living in Reykjavík. His artistic practice is not particularly bound to a certain medium, but rather a consistent revising of concepts that can manifest in various forms. These concepts often refer to cultural development, creation of meaning, as well as perceptual concepts of time, space and materiality. With this in mind, his work has continuity in concept rather than appearance. The disconnection of metaphoric meaning and the creation of reason through dynamic conjunction rather than repetitive connections can be seen as an overall motive in artistic practice.
Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir (b. 1987) is an artist and poet. Among other things, she works with notes, sounds and words in her works, as well as performances. Her work often revolves around the unexpected and ridiculous, erasing the borders between different media. In 2018, she displayed her performance Lunar-10.13 & Gáta Nórensu at the Reykjavík Arts Festival, where poetry, music, installations and performances merged into one. Her works include a cod opera, humming choir piece, sound poetry choir piece and a vowel composition. Her latest book is called Gluggi – draumskrá (Window – Dream Register) and contains a list of dreams. Ásta has performed her compositions, poetry and performances at various festivals and exhibitions in Iceland and abroad. She received the Kópavogur poetry prize in 2017 and was nominated for Bernard Heidsieck literary prize, Pompidou in 2021.
Hailing from the peripheries of Iceland, Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir (b. 1987) follows inner logics when approaching composition, often integrating sound and other phenomena into an indivisible whole. Her “elemental style” (Steve Smith, The New Yorker) has been commissioned and performed widely and by renowned groups such as the Oslo Philharmonic (NO), Iceland Symphony Orchestra (IS), International Contemporary Ensemble ICE (US), Decibel (AUS), Avanti! Chamber Orchestra (FI) and Nordic Affect (IS), while featured in major festivals and events such as Tectonics (Glasgow, Reykjavík, Athens, Oslo), Nordic Music Days (London, Bodø, Reykjavík), Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart (New York), Only Connect (Oslo), Classical:NEXT (Rotterdam), SPOR (Aarhus), Cycle (Kópavogur), Ultima (Oslo), Dark Music Days (Reykjavík), Sigur Rós’s Norður og Niður (Reykjavík), KLANG (Copenhagen), ISCM’s World New Music Days (Beijing), Sound of Stockholm, Prototype (New York) and more. Bergrún holds a master’s degree in composition from Mills College where she studied with the likes of Pauline Oliveros, Fred Frith, Zeena Parkins, and Roscoe Mitchell.
Nýlókórinn – The Icelandic Sound Poetry Choir var established 2003 to perform sound poetries. The choir performs twice to three times a year and has performed diverse works by Icelandic and foreign artist, like Magnús Pálsson, Philip Corner, Eric Andersen, Hörð Bragason, Kristin G. Harðarson, Rúrí, Hörpu Björnsdóttur, Ástu Ólafsdóttur, Eiríksínu Ásgrímsdóttur, Áka Ásgeirsson, Magneu Ásmundsdóttur, Þorkel Atlason, Rod Summers, Níels Hafstein, Guðmund Haraldsson and Magnús Jensson.
