Gabríela

Operazione pane - the movie!
Exclusive footage by Gabríela.

→	GREATEST HITS
01	all is full of love
02	hyperballad
03	human behaviour
04	jóga
05	bachelorette
06	army of me
07	pagan poetry
08	big time sensuality
09	venus as a boy
10	hunter
11	hidden place
12	isobel
13	possibly maybe
14	play dead
15	it's in our hands
→	FAMILY TREE
++	EXTRA

Björk: The artwork for Family Tree is by an Icelandic friend, a sculptor named Gabríela. Like me, she has four chambers in her which we call "roots," "beats," "strings" and "words." So I used this for the taxonomic structure of Family Tree… To bring together roots, beats, strings, and words, to unite all these opposing sytems, is to be a medium between disparate worlds trying to unite history, the present and the environment into a song on the radio, in a possible moment of utopia…

random poetry by Morris, and other artwork by Gabríela

[01] Telepathy
[02] Uppspretta
[03] The conquest of the polyconsoler
[04] A fortiori
[05] Rhapsody
[06] Temper examples
[07] Balderdash
[08] Operazione Morizia
[09] The elliptic mouthed illusionist
[10] The bottom seeker
[11] The core
[12] Equilibrium
[13] Portrait of denial
[14] Mjaldur
[15] Elliptics
[16] Fernando
[17] Halfman halfbeast
[18] Simplicity
[19] The bottle run
[20] Terrific snowman
[21] Zahir
[22] Attack of the minor-complex bacteria
[23] M.I.R
[24] Melancholy
[25] Reason
[26] Sculptor
[27] Operazione pane
[28] Sculptor
[29] Geomagnetism
[30] The girl
[31] Stitching shadows
[32] Existensialism 3
[33] They are in town
[34] Operazione poetica
[35] Cross section of anxiety
[36] Fashion week
[37] Power plant
[38] Melancholie’s first visit
[39] At the smirkmaster’s best
[40] Beach boys

Björk: I guess I could say a little more about the artwork. Whilst this is a "Greatest Hits", it is really more of a retrospective for me. It is not only about the singles, but how I felt I learned and how I got there. The visual side of it was to get a close friend of mine, an Icelandic artist, a girl called Gabríela to help. She also had to struggle with the four branches, being an Icelandic artist, having Icelandic roots, which are mostly caught up these sagas and mythology, having to face the fact that there is no such thing as Icelandic modern art, so you can invent it. Just like I did with Icelandic pop music, which was a great freedom for me, so I didn't have to struggle with people like The Beatles or Jimi Hendrix or something, I could just start from scratch, almost.

Gabríela has the academic branch as me too, she went to an art school where she was told a lot about German artists, and how if you are a woman born in Iceland, thirty years ago, what on earth would you have in common with European Art History - almost nothing. So to try first of all to reject it and then to later on find that you have some of that in you as it was shown to you in school for ten years. I think any Icelander is a poet, as I have said before, everybody in Iceland at least sometimes read the poetry books and the language pretty fierce - this has become our identity through the ages. So Gabríela, my friend, has some pieces where she has dealt with that too. The fourth branch where we have dealt with foreign influences, that we are Icelandic and are up for the volcanoes and the hot springs and all that, we get really pissed off as being categorised as some sort of Eskimos or Elves. We think of ourselves as being really quite modern, we do modern things. So there is that side too, and she has done the artwork for the tree as a result.

Aperto Reykjavík, Flash Art January February 1999; page 51.

"Gabríela Friðriksdóttir's ironically naive idealism is also a certain kind of fetishistic geneology: of spiritualism, for instance, which due to its remarkable popularity often passes as the unofficial religion of the Icelanders. But whereas she is unableto envisage the guiding spirits of her ancestors-the fading of psychic force is but one aspect of the dissipating "aura" in modern televised society-Fridriksdottir generalizes them as amoebae: informal blobs akin to the omnipotent comic family of Barba Papa, able to assume whatever form they, or she wishes. Her comical "Pointer" (made in 1998) is such kind of a commercialized apparition of an ancestral figure, of a providential indicator whose guiding signals she feels free to follow or ignore."

On Gabriela from the catalogue Hvalreki, exhibition at The Alma low museum, Sweden. Group exhibition "My body is over the ocean- The sea". 2002

".....A totally different approach can be seen in the works of gabríela friðriksdóttir, whose activity is a constant profanation of transcendental artistic attitude. Romantic sentiments such as the well known melancholic state of mind of the Sturm und Drang era ridiculed in every possible way. From a rustic footstool of the crudest kind one can hear the dramatic emanation of Wagner's Flying Dutchman. Nothing is too sacred to be made banal."

All articles written by; Halldor B. Runolfsson, an art critic and Lector at the Icelandic Academie of The Arts.

"Portrait of the artist as our spitting image", in catalogue, exhibition "Icelandic bone in a swedish sock", Gallery 54, Gothenbourg, Sweden, 1999.

"There is areason for celebration since the artist is coming from under the harsh winter and cannot wait to rejoice in a rhapsodical way the retutn of spring. Unlike her cool and calculated colleagues she attaches a lot of importance to the sentimental emanation of colour, shape and line. She is truely surrounded by the spirits of fantasy; her ancestral protectors guide her through a bog of difficulties and wrong decisions.

Fridriksdottir's vocabulary is as much rooted in music as in visual arts, and she has been able to settle the balance between the two fields more successfully than most practioners of composed art. Her use of traditional media-painting and sculpture-doesn't prevent her from experimenting with the broadest of forms, architectural as well as environmental. The psychedelic aspect of many of her works is largely due to her use of organic forms and bright colours. Although her last two exhibitions have shown a sharp reduction in hues, and a sudden predilection for black and white, Fridriksdottir is now concentrading on mild tones.

With her environmental research often resulting in sculptures that are furniture-like, decorative and mobile so that they can be reshaped and rearranged. Fridriksdottir has been able to treat visual art in a way which resembles musical elements. A joy which we haven't seen in art since Miró did his Harlequin's Carnival, and Klee his Dance, Monster, to My Soft Song!, suddenly reminds us that life is more than a sheer misery. A whole new perspective which cheerfully announces a new millenium has been taking shape between the grave towers of generic purity and mutilated identity. It takes its pitch after a nomadic culture which knows no borders, hence no segregation, and dosen t allow itself to be confined by any claustrophobic standards of bad conscience. Like the internet, Fridriksdottir's art is virtually endless in its projection, although materially it is hardly more tangible."

Gabríela's CV

Selected solo exhibitions:
2002
"OPERAZIONE DRAMATICA" Gerdarsafn museum, Kopavogur, Iceland. October-November. The exhibition consisted of sculptures, paintings, photographs and a video made in Berlin in 2001 named "Operazione Verde". In a small room the poems of Morris (the poetic side of gabriela) filled the air. The happening: "Operazione Comissatio" took place outside of the museum at the opening, where a fire was lit in a barrel and a gang of bums warmed their cold bottle-holding fingers by the fire.

2001
"ANIMAL INSIDE ANIMAL OUTSIDE" at Gallery Saevar Karl, Reykjavik February-March. Sculptures and reliefs made out of canvas, wood branches, m.d.f., ground of paint and enamel. The "ANIMAL SONATA" a piano work which I made for the exhibition repedetly played on the exhibition time. The video work "FERNANDO" was placed in the window of the gallery and went on 24/7 for passersby to look at and was a kind of an induction to the exhibition. The musical happening "ANIMA ANIMALAE" took place at the opening where actress Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir and I played a duo performance on grand piano and violin.
"ART AND REAL ESTATE" at Husvangur real estate office in Reykjavik, Iceland, April-May. Seven paintings made out of enamel on m.d.f. board.

1999
"ARE YOU READY TO ROCK II" Gallery The Old Warehouse, Westmann-Islands, Iceland. March-April. Figurative installation, five floorpieces made with enamel and m.d.f. boards. The four elements, and the fifth element containing music I composed on a synthesizer: "INSIDE EARTH´S CORE, IT MOSTLY SLEEPS"
"ARE YOU READY TO ROCK I" Gallery Slunkariki, Isafjordur, Iceland, February-March. Figurative installation, worked in m.d.f., enamel and string. Inspired by the winter in the Westfjords, I composed simple melodies on a synthesizer:
"FROM HUCKLEBERRY FINN TO CHEKHOV"
"PERSONS AND FEELINGS" Gallery Saevar Karl, Reykjavik, Iceland. February-March. Figurative installation, sculptures and painting made with m.d.f. boards, crosswood, enamel and string.

1997
"THE NAMELESS ONE" at Gallery 20m2, Hverfisgata Reykjavik, Iceland. November -December. Figurative installation made with m.d.f, enamel, strings.
"S.A.L.T.A.R.I" The Icelandic Academy of the Arts, graduation from the sculpture department. Figurative installation made with m.d.f. boards, enamel.

Selected group exhibitions:
2002
"MY BODY IS OVER THE OCEAN - THE SEA"
14. Icelandic artists at The Alma Low Museum of Experimental Art, Ostra Amtervik, Varmland, Sweden. 7.June-22.August 2002
"INTO THE TABERNACLE" Tabernacle made out of m.d.f. boards and enamel, contained ropes, rubber and canvas. From speakers installed inside the tabernacle, one could hear a voice crying and pleasing for black powers and to be made the greatest sculptor ever breathen on this earth.
GROUP EXHIBITION at The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland. April-May 2002
"OPERAZIONE POETICA CONTINUE" the poet Morris, new poems describing the dark side of the poets mind.
An installation; dustbin, foetus and a rope.
black rubber, canvas, rope and paper

2001
GROUP EXHIBITION at Skaftfell Cultural Center in Seydisfjordur, Iceland, from September through October.
"OPERAZIONE POETICA" was a rocking chair and a baked three faced bread-head placed on the floor in the exhibition place. Inside the bread-head was a c.d. player which broadcasted poems in a loop among tunes from Wagner´s “Flying Dutchman” and “Tannhauser”. These twenty one poems played in the show were a part of a project I started in the year 2000 which I named "THE MORRIS PROJECT" . That project based at first on my immature approach towards poetry, became a pseudo man named Morris. Being Morris grew bigger and at Skaftfell Cultural Center I designed Morris´s chair and interviewed him in the catalogue.
"SCULPTURES BY SILFURTÚN" in Gardabaer Town , Iceland, on the occasion of Gardabaers 25th anniversary.
"KOMPOSISION 1" divided into four elements: plastic doves and carnations attached to a branch, picnic square made out of red and white tiles, round mirror pseudo-pond and some heads made out of lava and cement.

2000
"SOVEREIGNTY" at Gerdarsafn, Museum of Kopavogur, Iceland, December 1st – December 30th. Curator: Gudbjorg Kristjansdottir director of The Gerdarsafn Art Museum.
"OPERAZIONE ROMANTICA" Three floor pieces made out of m.d.f., wood branches, fur of lamb, ground paint and enamel, radio and a c.d. player. A rhapsodic execution with symbols such as swaztikas, a manger, skulls etc.

2000
"OCCURENCE" at Sputnik, Hverfisgata, Reykjavik, Iceland, September-October. co-operation of ten icelandic artists and Scandinavian designers. Curators: Aftur/Again
"THE BOMB OF BEAUTY CONQUERS THE EMOTIONAL UNIVERSE" painting worked in enamel on m.d.f. board
"MOUTHS" six objects made out of crosswood and enamel situated on "Montana" shelves, along with Arne Jacobsen´s "Egg"chair
"THE SEVEN CARDINAL VIRTUES , OLD AND NEW" at Thingvellir, Iceland, July -September. Fourteen Icelandic artists were appointed to work seperately on one virtue each, celebrating 1000 years of Christianity in Iceland at Thingvellir National Park. Curator: Hannes Sigurðsson Director of The Akureyri Art Museum.
"WISDOM" an interactive chest of drawers made of wood, bottles, mirror, stones, enamel and chairs. A xylophone was placed in one of the drawers for passersby to play with.
"ORGASM 2000" The Museum of Art in Akureyri, Iceland, January-February. Curator: Hannes Sigurðsson Director of The Akureyri Art Museum.
"LOSTORSORGARTISMOS" Video animation, my so called "kitchen movie series" in a "lazy animation" style showing a sculptor made out of clay in his atelier.
"SUCKING ON AN OLD WELL" paintings of the animated sculptor with his works. Painted with enamel on m.d.f. boards.

1999
"MAGGÓGABB INC. PRESENT: ART" at Gallery 101, Reykjavik, Iceland. Co-operation with artist Magnus Sigurdarson. Paintings and poems, oil, enamel, spray on m.d.f. boards. We made eleven poems each and painted eleven paintings inspired by the poetry.
"ICELANDIC BONE IN A SWEDISH SOCK" Six Icelandic artists at Gallery 54, Gothenburg, Sweden, April-May, Curator: Froydi Laszlo.
"ZAHIR" installation, mixed media: sound, video, uniform and a briefcase with eggs. Inspired from Luis Borges short-story "Zahir"

1998
"STATION TO STATION" Hungarian, Swiss and Icelandic artists at The Living Art Museum, Reykjavík, Iceland in October. Curator: Halldór Björn Runólfsson Art critic and historian.
"ANAL MOUTH" co-operation with Egill Sæbjörnsson and Haraldur Jónsson. Wall piece, mixed media. A speaker was placed inside the piece wherefrom the analmouth spoke of its existence.
"SHE GAVE HIM FUNNY STATUES" Oil on canvas.
"-30+60" at The Municipal Musem, Reykjavik, Iceland in September-October. Curator: Kristjan Steingrimur Jonsson, Professor at The Icelandic Academy of the Arts and Eirikur Thorlaksson Director of the Reykjavik Municipal Museum
"THE POINTER" Figurative relief, enamel on m.d.f., sewed with nylon strings. In memory of of all the great pointers I have met.

GRANTS/STIPENDS:
1998 Scholarship from the Czech government to study for 6.months at the A.V.U. (Academie Vytvarnich Umenie) in Prague, Czech Republic.
1999 The annual Penninn Prize for young artists in Iceland
2000 Official grant from the Icelandic Governments Art Fund for six months
2001 Grant from the Fund in memory of Gudmunda S. Kristinsdottir/Erro, appointed to young female artist.
2002 Official grant from the Icelandic Government Art fund to two years

EDUCATION:
1988-1992 The Reykjavik Junior College, Iceland, matriculation from the Language Department.
1993-1994 R›MI school of art, Reykjavik, Iceland.
1994 Summer workshop at the Technical School in Reykjavik, carpentry, electrics and metal departments.
1994-1997 The Icelandic Academy of Art, Reykjavík. B.A. degree from the Sculpture Department.
1998 A.V.U., The Academy of Fine Arts, Praha, Czech Republic, Scholarship to study as a guest student for 6. months, January-June.
2000 Le Bottegghi del Arte, Suvero, Liguria, Italy. Summer workshop and residence in Suvero in Italy.

Video works:

2001
"OPERAZIONE SORILLAE" The title of an allegoric video-work, where the white haired sisters go planting skulls and harvest more later on. The video was inspired from a part of music which I made for an exhibition in Gallery Slunkaríki in Ísajörður 1999 "ARE YOU READY TO ROCK I" . The video is nine minutes long. ©FATAMORGANA video and music works, Collaboration with Daniel Agust
"OPERAZIONE FATIMA" A woman in a white shawl walking in the fog expresses her ambiguous feelings. The video mingles with themes I composed on a synthesizer in 1999, The video is five minutes long. ©FATAMORGANA video and music works, Collaboration with Daniel Agust
"OPERAZIONE ENCORE" the sisters from AFTUR fashion design played ping pong in co- designed costumes. Can be seen on www.aftur.com©FATAMORGANA video and music works, Collaboration with Daniel Agust