Ljósmyndasafn Reykjavíkur (Reykjavik Museum Of Photography)

A review of the Reykjavik Museum of Photography as visited in November 2022. Another museum which was not quite what I expected. The moral perhaps being that I should check what’s on view before I visit!

The Reykjavik Museum Of Photography

If you have been following my series on Reykjavik you may have read my recent post about the National Gallery of Iceland. I had assumed that the National Gallery of Iceland would have a lot of Icelandic art. I was a bit surprised when it didn’t (I had to go to the House of Collections to find it). The Reykjavik Museum of Photography was a similar experience. I know that they have a collection of over 5,000,000 amateur and professional photographs from 1870 to today, presumably mostly of Reykjavik and Iceland. However, when I visited, all I found was a temporary exhibition, Elvar Örn Kjartansson: The System. At least this time the artist was Icelandic, right?

My disappointment in not finding any historic photos of Reykjavik was perhaps heightened by the effort I had taken to visit the museum. To be fair I’m not talking a genuinely arduous journey. Just that I tried once late Sunday morning, got confused because the building I had entered was clearly a library, and was then told by a librarian that I needed the sixth floor but it wasn’t open until 1PM. I dutifully came back at 1PM, only to find the permanent collection wasn’t on display.

However, all was not lost. Once I finished looking at the temporary exhibition (and another small one, Daníel Bergmann: Falcons), I found computers set up next to the shop where you can look through photographs from the collection. I took a look at a couple of interesting thematic groupings. Although it wasn’t quite the same as looking at physical images (especially archival prints) it was a fairly good subsitute. I also took the stairs back down to street level so I could look at images of childhood displayed around the spiral staircase. So the moral is to check before you visit: it may be easier to look at the online collection here rather than making a visit in person.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating (as an exhibition space): 3/5

Read on for more about the exhibition on view when I visited.

Elvar Örn Kjartansson: The System

Firstly: an important caveat. This exhibition has finished since my visit, so although I’m reviewing it you unfortunately can’t visit it yourself. Nonetheless I was interested to see the work of this Icelandic photographer so thought it worth sharing. Kjartansson is a multi-disciplinary artist currently living in Nuuk, Greenland. He has produced sculptures, ceramic works and prints in addition to photography. His photographic work has tended increasingly towards the abstract in recent years.

The System is about just that. Systems. The museum’s website tells us he “seeks to bring to the surface the invisible system behind the modern amenities that we take for granted”. In practice this means images of spaces with human activity implied: empty offices, factories, storage rooms, hangars. Activities take place here which are crucial to continuing our way of life. Yet we often only pay attention to them when there’s a problem. Kjartansson is asking us to notice, to really look at what’s around us.

Once I got over my expectations about what the Reykjavik Museum of Photography would be, I found this an interesting exhibition. The photographs are hung uniformly around the gallery space, which heightens the semi-abstraction of the images. I enjoyed seeing work by a contemporary Icelandic artist: if you too are intrigued, you can see more by Kjartansson here.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

Elvar Örn Kjartansson: The System ended on 11 December 2022.