Autumn Exhibition 2023 – Winning Proposal

The Art Council of Hafnarborg has selected Elitist Landscape, as the autumn exhibition of the year 2023, from proposals that were submitted at the end of last year, but the winning proposal was submitted by curators Eva Lín Vilhjálmsdóttir and Odda Júlía Snorradóttir.

The participating artists will be announced at a later date.

This will be the thirteenth exhibition in Hafnarborg’s Autumn Exhibition Series, where the objective is to collaborate with different curators, who get the chance to submit their own proposals, allowing new voices be heard. The Director and Art Council of Hafnarborg then review the submissions and select the winning proposal each year.

Midday Concerts – Winter to Spring 2023

We are proud to present the programme of the coming season of the Hafnarborg Midday Concert Series, in winter to spring 2023, but the concert series first started in 2003 and is therefore in its 20th year of operation. The first Midday Concert of the year is set to take place on February 7th at 12 p.m. To start the season, Erla Björg Káradóttir, soprano, will perform, accompanied by Antonía Hevesi, the artistic director of the concert series, on piano.

The programme of the Midday Concerts, until spring, is as follows:

February 7th
Erla Björg Káradóttir, soprano

March 7th
Bernadett Hegyi, soprano

April 4th
Sigríður Ósk Kristjánsdóttir, mezzosoprano

May 2nd
Valgerður Guðnadóttir, mezzosoprano

The Midday Concerts normally take place on the first Tuesday of each month during the wintertime. The concerts start promptly at noon and last for approximately half an hour. The doors open at 11:30 a.m. and the concerts are open to all, as long as seating is available. Entry is free.

Please note that the programme is subject to change.

Donation and Exhibition of Works by Sóley Eiríksdóttir

Last year, Hafnarborg received a generous donation of massive concrete sculptures made by the artist Sóley Eiríksdóttir (1957-1994), born and raised in Hafnarfjörður. The works add to the museum’s existing collection of works by the artist, spanning Sóley’s short but dynamic career.

The works were bestowed upon the museum by Brynja Jónsdóttir, the daughter of Sóley and artist Jón Axel Björnsson, who made the formal donation last autumn, from which time an exhibition of Sóley’s works has been in preparation at Hafnarborg.

The exhibition will feature the recently acquired artworks, as well as works that were already part of the Hafnarborg Collection, belong to the collections of other museums or private collectors. Clay was Sóley’s medium of choice, but early on she mostly worked within the pottery tradition. Later, however, her imagery took on a life of its own in large, three-dimensional works, made from concrete.

The title of the exhibition is Amuse, curated by Aldís Arnardóttir and Aðalheiður Valgeirsdóttir.

Sóley Eiríksdóttir studied metalworking at the Technical College of Hafnarfjörður for a year after finishing her studies at the Flensborg Secondary School. In 1975, she then enrolled in the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts, first at the Department of Teaching before ultimately graduating from the Department of Pottery in 1981. Sóley exhibited widely in her short career, for example at the Reykjavík Art Museum, Hafnarborg, Gallerí Langbrók and the ASÍ Art Museum, as well as abroad, in the United States, Finland, Luxembourg, Canada and Germany.

The Globe of Goodwill 2022 – Now Available at Our Shop

This year’s Globe of Goodwill, Sphere with Mark, by Karin Sander is now available at the museum shop. Each year, the Globe is sold as a limited edition, but last year the Globe sold out. All proceeds go to benefit children and young people with disabilities.

A red brushstroke floats in the tree, a painterly gesture on a fragile glass sphere, the colour glows and moves, acting as a marker of the ending year.

Karen Sander applies a single brushstroke to the transparent Globe of Goodwill as a clear painterly gesture. The thick impasto sits on the smooth, convex surface of the glass, visible three-dimensionally from all sides, including its concave side. The brushstroke’s end is wispy, revealing the viscosity of the colour while also telling of a gesture that is both cautious and energetic. The chosen colour stands out luminously from its surroundings, thereby becoming a sign of attentiveness and self reflection. Sphere with Mark thus becomes a mobile painting that constantly changes, as it responds to the environment, integrated in the painting itself.

Karin Sander (b. 1957) lives and works in Berlin and Zurich, but she has been connected to the Icelandic art scene since the early 1990s. Her artistic practice questions given situations and spaces in relation to their structural, social and historical contexts, making them visible in different ways using a range of media. Her works have been presented in solo exhibitions and festivals worldwide and belong to public collections around the world. Since 2007 she has held a professorship for architecture and art at the ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Zurich. Together with Philip Ursprung, she will represent Switzerland at the 18th International Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2023.

The Globe of Goodwill will be sold at the museum shop from December 8th until December 23rd, or while it remains in stock. 

Gunnar Örn Gunnarsson – Open Studio at Kambur

Gunnar Örn Gunnarsson (1946-2008) moved with his family to Kambur in South Iceland in 1986. There, he had a spacious studio in an old storehouse, which he transformed and used as his workspace for over two decades, but the space made it possible for him to work on a bigger scale than before. From 1998, Gunnar Örn also ran an international gallery on site, called Gallerí Kambur, now an artist residency.

This summer, Hafnarborg presents a retrospective of Gunnar Örn’s career, titled In the Depths of Your Own Awareness. In connection with the exhibition, Gunnar Örn’s family will open the artist’s studio at Kambur all Saturdays in August, from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Kambur is located by the lake Vestra Gíslholtsvatn, midway between the towns Selfoss and Hella, on route 284, diverging from the Ring Road shortly after one crosses the river Þjórsá heading eastwards (driving from the capital takes a little less than an hour and a half).

Click on the map to view it as a bigger image.

Welcome to the studio for a coffee and a chat.

Public Art – New Mural by Juan

At noon on June 10th, Rósa Guðbjartsdóttir, Mayor of Hafnarfjörður, unveiled a new mural by artist Juan on the wall of Strandgata 4, which has been decorated with various wall paintings in the last years. In the first place, Juan contacted the municipality of Hafnarfjörður to find out if the town had a building which might be fit for this purpose, but Juan has lately caught people’s attention for his murals in the public space all around Iceland.

Members of the Culture and Tourism Committee of Hafnarfjörður were intrigued by Juan’s idea and asked him to submit a proposal for a mural on Strandgata, but the resulting sketch was a collage of monuments and public artworks in the town of Hafnarfjörður, including select works under the care of Hafnarborg. Subsequently, representatives of the town contacted the artists or the families of the artists to ask for their permission to make use of the works in this manner, which they all kindly granted, and so thanks go to everyone who made this work possible.

The mural depicts the following monuments and public artworks:
· Worship by Ásmundur Sveinsson
· Shelter for Winds by Barbara Tieaho
· The Golden Gate by Eliza Thoenen-Steinle
· Monument to the First Lutheran Church in Iceland by Hartmut Wolf, also known as Lupus
· Troll by Páll Guðmundsson of Húsafell
· Hafnarfjörður Variations by Sebastian
· Bad Connection by Sonja Renard
· Untitled work by Sólveig Baldursdóttir
· A Hundred Years of Solitude and an untitled work by Sverrir Ólafsson
· The Watch by Timo Solis
· Sailing by Þorkell Gunnar Guðmundsson

The mural also features a QR code which leads directly to Hafnarborg’s website on public artworks in Hafnarfjörður, which will hopefully increase awareness of and people’s interest in this remarkable collection, which can be visited at all hours of the day. In the hopes of improving public health, Hafnarborg the encourages both residents and visitors of Hafnarfjörður to take a walk around town – seek out the works, take a little break and let art be a force of healing.

Hafnarborg’s website on public artworks can be found here.

Art Without Borders 2022 – Solo Exhibition at Hafnarborg

All of us at Hafnarborg would like to congratulate Elfa Björk Jónsdóttir on being named the Artist of the Year of Art Without Borders, but Elfa Björk will have a solo exhibition at Hafnarborg this autumn in connection with the festival.

Elfa Björk Jónsdóttir is a talented artist whose style is based in abstraction, where she brings together formalist and figurative imagery in a lively manner, drawing inspiration from the environment, nature books or from art history.

Art Without Borders 2022 will take place from October 15th until October 30th.

Pictured with Elfa Björk are Jóhanna Ásgeirsdóttir, artistic director of the festival, and Aldís Arnardóttir, Director of Hafnarborg.

Nominations for The Icelandic Music Awards 2022

All of us at Hafnarborg would like to congratulate Þráinn Hjálmarsson, the artistic director of the concert series Phonemes, on the nomination for The Icelandic Music Awards 2022, as Phonemes has been nominated in the category “Music Event of the Year – Festivals”, in the field of classic and contemporary music.

We also congratulate Andrés Þór Gunnlaugsson, the artistic director of the Hafnarborg Afternoon Concert series, on the nomination of the new series as “Music Event of the Year”, in the field of jazz and blues music, as well as congratulating Andrés Þór on his personal nomination as “Performer of the Year”, in the same field.

We thank all of you for enriching the programme of Hafnarborg with your dedication to music, which you share so graciously with us. We also wish to express our gratitude to the judges and affiliates of The Icelandic Music Awards for the honour shown to the institution with the nominations.

Viewpoints – Museum Visits for Senior Audiences

Hafnarborg strives to open up the world of art to everyone by offering guided tours for all audiences and all ages. To that end, Viewpoints is a new senior visitors programme, for those interested in arts and culture, looking to get a deeper insight into what is happening at Hafnarborg, either by focusing on current exhibitions or by examining individual works in the museum collection.

The events will allow guests the opportunity to approach art through a variety of means, in discussion with museum experts. At the end of the meeting, we invite visitors to sit down for a chat over coffee and snacks, provided by Hafnarborg.

The programme will centre on a special subject during each visit, set to take place on Wednesdays, once a month, from 2-3 p.m. To ensure that everyone can enjoy the programme, there is a limit of 25 guests during the visit.


Spring Programme:

March 16th at 2 p.m.
The Icelandic Photo Festival – Hallgerður Hallgrímsdóttir

A guided tour of Hallgerður Hallgrímsdóttir’s exhibition, A Few Thoughts on Photography – Vol. III. Hallgerður utilizes the various possibilities of the medium, photography, to better understand its technique and history. The exhibition is a part of the programme of The Icelandic Photo Festival.

April 13th at 2 p.m.
Works from the Collection

The Hafnarborg Collection currently counts nearly 1600 works in a wide range of media. This includes painting, drawing, sculptures and video works, as well as the Hafnarfjörður’s public art collection, which is under the care of Hafnarborg. The visit will centre on select works from the museum collection.

May 11th at 2 p.m.
DesignMarch – Tinna Gunnarsdóttir

A guided tour of  Tinna Gunnarsdóttir’s exhibition, Touching Landscape. The works displayed are part of Tinna’s ongoing doctoral research project in Héðinsfjörður in Northern Iceland, where she reflects on the relationship between man and nature through various design methods. The exhibition is a part of DesignMarch 2022.


Guests can register for the visits via telphone at +354 585 5790 or via email at [email protected].

Free entry.

Easter Opening Hours in Hafnarborg

Hafnarborg wishes its friends and supporters a very happy Easter. Opening hours during the holidays are as follows:

Maundy Thursday April 14th
Open 12 p.m.–5 p.m.

Good Friday April 15th
Closed

Holy Saturday April 16th
Open 12 p.m.–5 p.m.

Easter Sunday April 17th
Closed

Easter Monday April 18th
Open 12 p.m.–5 p.m.