Kjarvalsstaðir aka The First Fake-Football-Fanclub Event
My darling, darling, darling husband, whom I love more than dark chocolate, likes football a lot.
And that’s great. I looove that he has a hobby (I have similarly engrossing hobbies in my online life), buuuut (could you see the buuut coming?), admittedly, I’ve been a bit miffed that he has a reason to physically venture out of the house every weekend (more or less) for upwards of two hours, come rain, hell, or snowstorms.
So, I’ve been trying to think of something equivalent for me to do, but there aren’t a lot of organized events for people who just want to do something different or special for two hours, sans children. And going to the gym is way too pedestrian.
And thus I decided to form a Fake-Football-Fanclub. Which will operate like a football fanclub, as in have a set time and event to attend every weekend (or close to it) picked by me.
The plan for now is to do something between 3-5 pm on either the Saturday or Sunday (opposite of Finnur’s engagement probably), and for now I’m working with ideas off of the TripAdvisor Activities list for Reykjavik.
The Fake-Football-Fanclub is called Ekki-aðdáendaklúbbur Shrewsbury Town (Not-Fanclub of Shrewsbury Town), and by making it public, I’m putting pressure on my self to both plan and go do stuff!! And of course, if someone wants to tag along, the more the merrier! 🙂
(Shrewsbury Town got picked due to Þráinn’s suggestion that Shrewsbury is the birthplace of Darwin, which is cool.)
So. Today was my first outing.
I decided to be arty, and visit Kjarvalsstaðir (The Place of Kjarval) which is a museum with two show areas, one of which is pretty permanently dedicated to the prolific Icelandic painter Jóhannes S. Kjarval, and the other houses random showings. Today was the last day of the showing for Alexander Rodchenko: Revolution in Photography (wikipedia link).
And in spite of my sometimes snarky commentary (see below), I had a very good time. 🙂 (47 images total)
The weather outside was blistery, but not too bad.
All museums must have art installations out front.
Hello lovely entrance guardian. I decided to splurge for a ‘cultural card‘ giving me a yearlong access to lots of cultural institutions. It cost about $50.
I was surprised at the number of people in attendance. There were also a surprising number of kids there, probably mostly tagging along with a large group of women I spotted.
First up: The Russian photographer. I knew nothing about him beforehand, but I got the impression that he’d been instrumental in breaking free of the rigid photo-setups of the past, and experimenting with the medium.
People looking at photos. The photos were nicely gathered in thematic groups, but I was annoyed by the annotating texts which were all off to the side of each group, and left you guessing which referred to which.
In propaganda-land. Athletic Russians making attractive sculptures.
Ponderers ponder.
The large grouping of pictures had lots of examples of taking pictures from high on up, or from weird angles. All pretty standard stuff today, but probably highly unusual back in the day.
Remember, they didn’t have Photoshop back in the 1930s…
A lot of the pieces were original collages. You can see the bending of the card stock where it’s been glued on to the larger sheet of paper. Life was hard before Photoshop, for sure!
More collage-work, with a side helping of some white paint.
Lady shouting excitedly. I’m sure her head got used a lot.
Forms and lines. I got into a small discussion a couple who thought one of the images was reversed. I disagreed.
One lady walking around videotaping the exhibition with a fancy new camera. I regretted not bringing mine.
All photographers must go through a tilt-stage, however long.
The parachute is an actual fold out, most impressive!
I feel like I’ve seen this image a thousand times?
I’m not sure people used to waste precious photo stuff on machinery before this guy.
I speak in musts.
On the way to the cafeteria is a ‘do what you want’ room, which was mostly occupied by kiddos.
All this photo-pondering made me hungry, so I sampled the hot chocolate and carrot cake. The cake was on the dry side, and the chocolate gets a 3.5 out of 5. Total cost: 1140 kr.
The cafe area, between the two halls.
Most of the kids had been told to go outside and play. What obedient kids!
Next up: Master Kjarval. This particular exhibition gathered together works owned by the three major banks in Iceland, and is apparently the second such gathering they’ve done. The pictures are hung randomly, ‘salon’ style.
Here be lots of pictures. Worth a lot of money.
I know nothing about painting, but I’m fairly sure this took forever to paint!
Who writes Hurrah on to their pictures? Cool guys, that’s who.
It would appear this guy like to experiment with different styles.
Some people doodle better than others…
Now, photos lie. A lot. Particularly about colors. And I’m pretty sure I’ve boosted the contrast on this image to make the colors a lot more vibrant than they really are. But that’s how I like it. Because, to be honest, I didn’t really feel like hanging any of these pictures up on my wall, because the color-palettes were mostly rather muted and dull. (Not all, but most.)
The lower right corner of the image above. Again, this must have taken the better part of forever. I found it intriguing that he’d often put pretty dark line shapes on the top of his more blurry shapes.
Women looking at art.
Women looking still looking at art.
Probably the only photo I’d hang up on a wall in my own home. I like rainbow colored stuff!
I was bemused that in a rather large picture of an imposing mountain-scape was scratched out a church and a large flower.
Again, colors have been punched up a notch. Would you like this in your bedroom?
Selfie with the crappy front-facing camera in front of a rather traditional landscape-picture.
Why the reds mister?
As I was leaving, I noticed a guy putting out chairs in one of the rooms, most likely for a fancy concert. I felt out of the loop!
Sigh, the banks own us all.
This guy lived for a long time!
The cafe closing down close to 5 pm.
Parents cleaning up the mess their kids made in the kiddie room.
Dont’ forget to stop by the gift store on the way out!
And for future reference. 🙂
Closing time, time to go.
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