FFF #13 – Elf Books and Arts Academy Graduation Show
[Written 5 and 6 May 2014]
This weekend’s FFF outing was super short, because yet again, the schedule was full. (The big kids practice three sports between them, and ALL THREE had meets this weekend!!!)
Once Finnur and the kids returned from the Saturday football and team handball meets, I basically grabbed the camera and ran out the door with Anna in tow, because she’d begged for a trip to the main Reykjavik library to get more manga books. We had about an hour before Finnur needed to be out the door for his own thing, so we had to be quick.
Once inside the main library, we discovered we’d inadvertently stumbled upon a small art-show opening, so we stuck around and checked it out. Once we’d satisfied our curiosity, we ran next door to Hafnarhúsið (the outing’s main target) where the current crop of Iceland Academy of the Arts graduates were showing their work.
The “elf books” at the library were adorable, and the Arts Academy show was hit and miss as usual. Incidentally, I realized belatedly that I’d seen elf-books during last weekend’s outing, on the walls of Cafe Loki. Small city! (33 images total)
The books Anna was returning on the self-serve counter, but what was that party in the background?
A pricelist? For what?
Huh, that’s not library books. That looks like… art!
The artist in question, Garason, gave a short speech introducing himself and his works. He’s been making frames with tiny books for some five years now, instead of working on the novel he promised his publisher shortly before taking a small break from writing to make frames with tiny books.
One of the elf-book works. I didn’t have the lens needed to really capture the book details, but they were very well done.
All the frames had a tiny humanoid in them, a ‘guardian elf’ of sorts. Anna went around finding as many as she could. It’s not the kid in the green jumper.
There were postcards floating around with the artist holding one of his works and…
… and informative blurb on the back.
The Icelandic equivalent of doughnuts. A friend of the artist always makes tiny ones for him when he opens elf book shows.
A cute Buddha one. I heard the artist say that he personally owns all the books that he has in his works. It also sounded like he photographs them, and then prints the tiny covers out himself. It all sounded very low-tech. Still, the tiny book covers were very well made, and fun to peruse.
The only selfie of this trip.
A nook with pictures of all five presidents Iceland has ever had (!!!).
An attempt to get a clear picture of the tiny books and guardian elf.
Anna with a magnifying glass.
The artist talking about one of his works with the official photographer and two other people.
A quick parting shot before…
… heading out with 15 manga books in tow.
We walked quickly to the house next door, aka the Reykjavik Art Museum. It was raining to so wasn’t inspired to take outside pictures. Inside there was a collection of… stuff. Art.
Anna was perplexed by pretty much everything in there. What is this? was the most common question.
People looking at stuff.
A ginormous mechanic fuck-you sign. The middle finger moved in a circle, pretty fast as you can see below…
Animated gifs are awesome!
The work area where they were drilling into those long wood-beams.
Next up: The architects.
Each student had been assigned a piece of land in a neighborhood.
I liked this setup. They’d installed doors on the walls, so you opened up the door to a certain address to see what the student had designed.
Walking around the models on a large scale platform. Anna seemed confused by the notion that houses needed to be be designed before they got built.
We quickly went upstairs to the graphical designers, and found this series of hearts from different mammals, ordered by size. It was meant to remind us that we’re all very similar on the inside.
I tried to explain to Anna that fonts also had to be designed before you could use them.
Weirdly, a group of people were being photographed in the hallway while holding face masks depicting various English royals. I didn’t ask why.
Creature collage. Well made. Seemed to be oil paint.
Looking into a skylight of sorts. This piece looked better far away then up close… the lines were made of silicone, and obviously hand-“painted” on.
We also peeked into rooms where they were displaying clothing design and some videos, but we’d run out of time and therefore had to leave before finishing the show. It was a fun run though!