GALLERY: Guðmundur Ingólfsson Kvosin – 1986 & 2011
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Guðmundur Ingólfsson Kvosin – 1986 & 201126 January – 12. May 2013
There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described .- I like to think of photographing as a two way act of respect. Respect for the medium, by letting it do what it does best, describe. And respect for the subject, by describing it as it is. A photograph must be responsible to both. Garry Winogrand
Guðmundur Ingólfsson is one of the pillars of Icelandic photography today. The exhibition KVOSIN 1986 & 2011, a collaboration between The Reykjavík Museum of Photography and the Reykjavík City Museum, consists of photographs, taken 25 years apart. Guðmundur started the project in 1986, in occasion of the bicentenary of Reykjavík, which fuelled his interest in documenting the old town – following in the footsteps of his predecessors, Sigfús Eymundsson and Magnús Ólafsson, who were documenting the district a hundred years before.
About Guðmundur Ingólfsson
Guðmundur studied under Otto Steinert at Folkwangschule für Gestaltung in Essen. He was in Germany from 1968 to 1971, and was for a time an assistant to Steinert, one of the pioneers of “subjective“ photography, based upon the “new objectivity” of the Bauhaus movement, influential in the 1930s and then banned as “degenerate” under the Nazis. During Guðmundur’s time in Germany he developed his visual approach, which crystallised in attaining a photograph which is a “clearly-described fact,” with clear and uncluttered forms. On his return to Iceland from Germany Guðmundur opened his own photographic studio, Ímynd. Over the four decades which have passed since then, he has undertaken a diverse range of photographic assignments – working for advertising agencies and various institutions, along with projects in design, art, architecture and theatre. Guðmundur has always been keenly interested in documenting the impact of man and the manmade, as evidenced by the exhibition Kvosin 1986 & 2011. From the beginning of his career, Guðmundur has exhibited his photographs both in Iceland and abroad, on both sides of the Atlantic. Examples include The Frozen Image at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis in 19818, and an exhibition at the Barbican Centre in London in 1992. His show Óðöl og Innréttingar (Edifices and Enterprises) was shown at the Reykjavík Museum of Photography in 2002. Prestigious photography journals have also published articles about Guðmundur and interviews with him.
Guests Review
A great display of 25 years in the life of old Reykjavík. Amazing how little has changed in some scenes. It reminds us of a 20/20 display of Southend on Sea, Essex, U.K.
What will the next 25 years bring? A great display.
Mike and Julie Bowles, Essex, U.K.
Video from Museum Night
Evening Guests with Guðmundur Ingólfsson photographer in connection to his exhibition KVOSIN 1986 & 2011
