Galerie Adler New York is pleased to present the first New York solo show of Icelandic video artist Sigur?ur Gu?jónsson (*1975 Reykjavík, IS) which will open on March 20 and run through May 17, 2008. The opening reception will be on the March 20, 6-9 pm.

Gudjónsson’s works combine the old topos of his native country’s Nordic natural mysticism with the morbid, sinister side of Vienna, the city where he studied for several years. In his videos, the artist plays on the deliberately utilized cut and superimposing techniques to seize the viewer emotionally. But it is especially the equally important simultaneous interplay of film and sound elements that create an atmospheric arena.

In “Deathbed” (2006), the run-down sceleton of an old house stands in the middle of a bewildering cluster of morbid and grotesque conditions and the attempt of a hooded protagonist to intrude the ruin in the endless snowcovered wasteland. In the eerie atmosphere, he meets – or does he? – figures, faceless people who in what might or might not seem scenes of the past dress their grey, jejune hair in pin curlers and wash their decaying limbs in red water to the sound of a muted piano’s play.

While Gu?jónsson’s videos depict persons acting in specific sites, his works repudiate a linear narrative or unambiguous legibility. What remains are physically and emotionally experienced fragments that are joined to form a cryptic visual and acoustic symphony. Attention is given to the grotesque actions of the players and the unnoticed bystander, the viewer, who seems to become a witness to mysterious rituals.

Cinematic and musical elements are of equal importance in Sigur?ur Gu?jónsson’s atmospheric works, to him, sound, vision and cut are equitable compositorial means on his search for a not so much intellectual but physically and emotionally perceptible abyss that Freud called the “Un-homely”. His works’ mystic, quasi-spiritual mood reflects psychological states on a universal level that, elder than speech itself, uncaptured in words and rationally unfathomable, introduces the mind to the borderline it shares with emotion.

Sigur?ur Gu?jónsson (b. 1975, Reykjavik) lives and works in Reykjavik, Iceland. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and graduated from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2003. The artist has had solo and group exhibitions all over Europe, in Germany, Denmark, Austria, Norway, Spain as well as in Russia and China. Currently he is part of the show “Iceland of the Edge” in the Bozar Center for Fine Arts in Brussels, one of the most renowned museums in Belgium.

We would be happy to welcome you to our reception on Thursday, March 20, from 6 – 9 pm.

Ulrike Adler