Kristján Guðmundsson: As Far as the Space Allows
i8 Gallery is pleased to present As Far as the Space Allows, an exhibition of new work by Kristján Guðmundsson, which will be on view from 30 January until 22 March 2025. The show, Guðmundsson’s seventh at i8, presents As Far as the Space Allows (2025), a unique, large-scale installation that fills the entire exhibition space and conceptually reaches beyond it.
As Far as the Space Allows begins with one etching, then expands, with each etching progressively larger and including red corners demarcating the growing measurement. The site-responsive installation begins on the left-hand side of the gallery as one enters, with Guðmundsson’s etchings tracing a path for the viewer. The artist’s final etching in the show extends toward the window of the gallery and lacks two red corners to close it, therefore representing an expansion of the work into infinity.
Concurrently to his show at i8 Gallery, Guðmundsson has a solo exhibition titled Eight Etchings at the Akureyri Art Museum in Iceland, which will be on view until 4 May 2025. These eight etchings, being presented for the first time in Iceland, were created in 2002 in two versions: as an artwork and over two artist books, Prints (2002) and Prints 2 (2002). Guðmundsson published both books with Silver Press, a publishing house he established with poet Einar Guðmundsson in 1970. Widely known for his conceptual sculptures and drawings, Guðmundsson is also recognised for his artist books, such as 200 Pages on Barnett Newman (2001), Once Around the Sun (1975-76) and Punktar/Periods (1972).
Throughout his career, Guðmundsson has investigated the boundaries and essence of artistic mediums, as well as tested the nature and limits of our ideas about time and space. For example, in his artist book Once Around the Sun (1975-76), which is in two volumes, Guðmundsson tackles the cosmic scale of Earth’s movement. In one volume, he visualises the time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun, with one dot for every second of a year—i.e. 31,556,926 dots. In the other volume, Guðmundsson illustrates how far the Earth travels in that second by drawing lines corresponding to that distance: the Earth travels about 29,771 meters per second (approximately 18 miles). In this manner, Guðmundsson often touches on scientific scales, symbols, and units of measurement. Unlike As Far as the Space Allows (2025), which has a strong spatial component, other works by Guðmundsson emphasise temporality. In Slower, Faster (1984), two piles of small stones are exhibited side by side. One pile consists of fine, rounded pebbles that have been gradually smoothed by time while the other is made up of mechanically crushed stones. In this way, Guðmundsson displays the temporal difference between human production on the one hand and natural processes on the other.
Kristján Guðmundsson (b. 1941, Snæfellsnes, Iceland) lives and works in Reykjavik. He was a key member of SÚM gallery, an artist-run space organised by a group of artists in Iceland influenced by Fluxus and Art Povera. SÚM broke with artistic tradition and ignited a shift in the Icelandic art world in the mid-1960s. Guðmundsson acted as the head of the gallery its first year before he moved to Amsterdam in 1970, where he lived for the next decade. He has exhibited widely in Europe and the United States, including exhibitions at Scandinavian House, New York, USA; Rappaz Museum, Basel, Switzerland; Safn, Berlin, Germany; Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany; MOCA, Los Angeles, USA; Quint Contemporary Art, La Jolla, USA; National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik; and the Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland; Malmö Kunsthall, Malmö, Sweden; Bozar, Brussel, Belgium; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Luzern, Switzerland; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and Centre Pompidou, Paris, France. In 1982, the artist represented Iceland at the Venice Biennale; in 2010, he received the Carnegie Art Award; and in 2022, he received the Honorary Award from the Icelandic Visual Arts Council for his long and successful career, which has made a significant mark on the history of Icelandic art.
