Sigurður Guðjónsson


Sigurður Guðjónsson is an Icelandic contemporary artist. He works in the field of installation art and video art.

Early life and career

Guðjónsson was born in 1975 in Reykjavík, Iceland. He studied art in Reykjavík at the Iceland University of the Arts, graduating in 2003 and in Vienna, at Akademie Der Bildenden Kunste between the years of 2003-4.

Work

Guðjónsson is mostly known for his video works, which carry dark and moody characteristics, as well as complex conceptual ideologies behind them. They often focus on the relationship between man-made infrastructure, technical relics, machinery, juxtaposed against natural objects and their soundscapes. He often works with musical composers and his newest work, titled Enigma, is made in collaboration with Anna Thorvaldsdóttir. It consists of a string quartet and a video piece and has recently been on tour with four-time Grammy nominees The Spektral Quartet. The work can be described as a small fragment of coal captured through an electron microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as its source of illumination, a materialized projection of a layered moment in time, that mirrors itself through texture.
It was announced in December 2019, that Sigurður Guðjónsson will represent Iceland at the 2021 Venice Biennale.
Guðjónsson is represented by the art gallery BERG Contemporary.
With more than twenty solo exhibitions and dozens of groups shows and festival screenings, his works have been shown to critical acclaim around the world and been exhibited in such institutions as the National Gallery of Iceland, Kennedy Center DC, Scandinavia House NYC, The Royal Society of British Sculptors and Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. He has participated in biennales such as the Liverpool Biennale, Vienna Biennale and Njord Biennale in Copenhagen. He currently lives and works in Reykjavík.

Awards

Guðjónsson was awarded the Icelandic Art Prize as Visual Artist of the Year in 2018, for his 2017 exhibition Inlight. The exhibition featured video installations set within the defunct St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hafnarfjörður, Iceland.

Publications