FFF #6 – Kling og Bang (The Visitors) and Kaffibrennslan
[Written 19 February 2014]
FFF #6 almost didn’t happen because it was such a busy weekend with the double birthday celebration etc. etc.
But, I’d been meaning to check out the gallery showing of The Visitors (YouTube, NYTimes) by Ragnar Kjartansson (and friends), having heard good things about it, and the kids were whining, so I decided to make a break for it.
I’m very glad that I did because this was so fun, lovely, technically impressive, and charming. Oh, Ragnar, why must you be so darn charming?! 🙂
Now, because this is Icleand, and Iceland has a tiny population, it should surprise nobody that Ragnar (anno 1976) and I attended the same high school/junior college. Now, I didn’t know him per se, but I certainly knew of him, and knew people that knew him.
It’s funny how some people are just incredibly noticeable right from an early age.
I haven’t really followed his work closely, but from what I’ve glimpsed over the years, one recurring theme in his works (which straddle the range from music to painting to installations to performance art) is repetition. (See painting the same guy in the same room in the same outfit once per day for six months, getting opera singers to repeat a famous operatic moment again and again for 12 hours – YouTube link).
This work had a lot of inbuilt repetition too, but not so that it felt gimmicky.
Basically, you walk into a large very dark room, where there are 9 large illuminated screens, set up such that some obscure others from view. On each screen is a musician/singer with headphones and they’re all performing/singing the same song, but each of them is in a separate room, so they’re united, but apart. (28 images total, 1 video)
A large dark room, with a surprising amount of people! (No, they’re not dancing, it’s just an animated gif!)
FFF #5 – Reykjavik Museum of Photography and Iða Book-Cafe
This weekend’s Fake-Football-Fanclub outing (#5!) got postponed from the originally scheduled time on Saturday because we decided on a whim to have Finnur take the big kids to a technology-show in downtown Harpa instead.
Come Sunday, I was suffering from acute cabin fever, so when the opportunity presented itself, I just headed out to do my thaaang, even though it was late in the day.
On the schedule was checking out the second part of the show “From a Different Angle…” (Betur sjá augu…), see FFF #3 for the first part. The second part of the show was much smaller than the first part, and somewhat less interesting. That may just be because I have a preference for photos of people though. 🙂 (48 images total)
Driving to downtown Reykjavík at 4 pm.
FFF #4 – The Icelandic Book of Drawings at Gerðarsafn and Cafe Dix
Today’s Fake Football Fanclub outing (#4!) was inspired by Elsa, and an ad and an article in the paper.
It turns out a scholar, Guðbjörg Kristjánsdóttir, has been working on analyzing a manuscript from the middle ages, called the Icelandic Book of Drawings (Íslenska teiknibókin), since the 1970s – and it’s finally culminated in the publishing of a book about the book, and an accompanying exhibition at the Kópavogur Art Museum – Gerðarsafn.
Said book just won a big Icelandic book-award, so admission to the exhibition was free this weekend, and I decided to go.
The aforementioned ad in the paper was regarding a free guided tour at 2 and 3 pm, but not only do I dislike crowds, we were also busy later in the day, so 11 am it was!
Ironically, I was late for my own event due to oversleeping (yeah, seriously!) but only by about 15 minutes. (57 images total, I kid you not.)
Gerðarsafn in Kópavogur is one of those buildings I’ve biked past a thousand times, but never actually entered. Well, finally the time had come!
Fake-Football-Fanclub Outing #3: Photo Exhibit at the National Museum of Iceland and Cafe Haiti
How time flies!!
Today was the third outing of the FFF (3xF?) club, and I was in the mood to be arty.
The art of choice was the opening of a new photo-exhibition by female Icelandic photographers dating from 1872-2013, called ‘From a Different Angle…‘ at the National Museum of Iceland.
Overall I really liked the show. The photos were undeniably ‘feminine’ in that they portrayed views that felt quite intimate, and/or home-y.
They “rang true”, is about as succinctly as I can put it! (31 images total)
I parked by the main building of the University of Iceland. The museum is on its right.
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.