Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir’s ultra-precise and enchanting exhibition of somewhat familiar, but also mysterious and eccentric, sculptures and objects at Reykjavik mainstay i8 Gallery is a total standout. Despite its startlingly apt title “Peace,” the exhibition is not a response to Russia’s (really Vladimir Putin’s) war on Ukraine and was in the works long before the war started. Birgisdóttir admitted to me, however, that she may have intuited impending mayhem while in Moscow in December, when she participated in the exhibition To Moscow! To Moscow! To Moscow! curated by Ragnar Kjartansson and Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdóttir at the V-A-C Foundation’s GES-2 House of Culture.
A year or so ago in a hardware store, Birgisdóttir stumbled on fabric spray paint with a perplexing image on the can: a white T-shirt, blue peace sign against a red background, and underneath the word “PEACE” in black letters. Exactly why a German product would feature this neo-Hippie image is perplexing, as if it were some weird marketing glitch.
With PEACE (all works 2022), Birgisdóttir has materialized this perplexing image as a striking mixed media installation; she has transmuted a pretend marketing image into physical fact. Two of the spray cans are displayed on separate walls. Nearby, a sweeping photo backdrop, its aqua-blue color perfectly matching that of the cans, courses down the wall and juts across the floor. An actual white, folded T-shirt at the bottom is a spot-on version of the one on the cans. But this is when things turn even more compelling and multifaceted. The photo backdrop seems curiously immense, hinting at a large monochrome painting (the whole ensemble with its colors and shapes is quite painterly) but also the vast sky and maybe the ocean as well, both visible through the gallery’s front windows. The solitary T-shirt seems vulnerable, almost overwhelmed by the backdrop. The peace sign and word PEACE seem beleaguered. However unintentionally, however serendipitously, Birgisdóttir’s really smart work connects, visually and emotionally, with our traumatic time, right now. It is also gorgeous. Birgisdóttir has a marvelous way of teasing frank beauty and poetry, so to speak, from the unlikeliest of sources.
