Morgunbladid, Reykjavik, Iceland. July 2nd, 1999 p. 31

Translation

Icelandic designer exhibits in New York

Collaboration of design, art and music

The Icelandic architect and designer Olafur Thordarson, who lives in New York, shows in various places around the City this summer. Hulda Stefansdottir interviewed him.

Earlier this spring Thordarson participated in three group exhibits of designers and recently his solo exhibit opened at the Klisanin Ross Gallery in the East Village. Thordarson got the musician/composer Skuli Sverrisson to participate and compose "Music for Furniture". The composition plays in the gallery throughout the duration of the exhibit.

Thordarson treads an unusual path in his works and spans each, painting and furniture design. His designs he says he develop with the methods of the painter, where the project is built up layer by layer, and that designing a piece of furniture is "literally like creating a painting in three dimensions".

Thordarson completed his Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University in 1990 and worked for some time with Italian designer Gaetano Pesce. For the last few years, Thordarson has worked independently in addition to establishing the web magazine Das Boot, which among other things introduces artists and designers in various fields.

"I am looking for building up this personal world of artistic creations", says Thordarson. "For me, the design and art worlds are not separated worlds and I can not see that there have to be complete lines drawn between works in urban design, architecture or design for a coffee cup." He looks over the tightly arranged exhibit where among other things one finds snail like clocks in concrete, wine racks which in form remind us of a red wine bottle and lamps, some of which are covered with leaves from around various city gardens. Others reach up like the stems of flowers looking for light and sun. A shelf in the image of a skyscraper and a cabinet with the expression of a guard dog wait for arriving guests at the opening of the exhibit. There are numerous paintings on the walls and one of them is composed of exactly 365 individual paintings of Iceland and cover an entire wall. Repeated rain and overcast rests over the country in these weather maps for an entire year which are titled "Vedrid i dag kl 12:00" (The weather today at noon). Thordarson grins and explains that the idea was born in his conversations with some of his friends in Iceland throughout the years. It often seemed to him that it was always raining back home. "It is an ode to my home country" says Thordarson. Working drawings and photographs of urban designs are rhythmically projected on the wall across, including a recent proposal for Grafarholt, for which Olafur got a special recognition.

Thordarson and Skuli Sverrisson had for a long time wanted to make an installation combining furniture and music. "Music for Furniture" is made of three separate compositions, projected from equally many directions through the exhibit in constant change. The compositions call on each other or slip into a chaotic whole in a way that the piece never sounds the same for the one month that the exhibit is up. Graphic designer Hjalti Karlsson designed the poster for the exhibit. In addition, Thordarson asked filmmaker Joe Chow to create a short film on the exhibit, including interviews with individuals involved with the exhibit and guests.

During the middle of last May, Thordarson participated in an International Furniture Exhibit in the Jacob Javits Center in New York. Earlier this month a group exhibit of four designers, including Thordarson, in the same gallery that he now exhibits his works. Then the New Museum of Contemporary Art had a group show last month, where among other thing one could see the clocks of Thordarson and others in flexible rubber. One version of the snail clocks are now for sale in the museum store.

"The pieces in this first solo exhibit of mine are the harvest of many years of relentless work. Now I’ll put them out to see people’s reactions", explains Thordarson. And he did not have to wait long for one couldn’t see better than the guests in the opening appreciated this visual play between design and art. The exhibit is up through July 13th.

Captions:

WINE RACKS designed by Thordarson, have caught attention recently.

Olafur Thordarson and the gallery owner, Meliska Klisanin, surrounded by his works just before the opening of the exhibit. In the background one sees a red shelf which can be used from both sides as well as paintings of the weather map in Iceland.