Improvisation for painting
Amsterdam-based artist Hrafnhildur Helgadóttir intervened during Marres Movements with a new, site-specific iteration of her artwork Improvisation For Painting (2013), first shown at Alpineum Produzenten gallery in Lucerne, Switzerland and at The Living Art Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland.
In various rooms of the exhibition The Painted Bird, Helgadóttir’s sculptural display structures served as framing devices to isolate visual elements of Marres’ painted interior, inciting three musicians to intuitively translate those fragments through live improvisation on electric guitar, electric bass and saxophone.
Inspired by the Slow Research theme ‘Not-Knowing,’ the afternoon and evening happenings were pure improvisation: real-time encounters that invite emotional engagement and openness to the present moment as the music adds a new, fluid layer to the already-rich environment of the exhibition.
Improvisation for painting was performed by Hrafnhildur Helgadóttir, Bergur Thomas Andersen, Tumi Árnason and Indridi Ingólfsson.
Hrafnhildur Helgadóttir
Hrafnhildur Helgadóttir (IS, 1987) is an independent visual artist and one of the founding members of the London and Amsterdam-based collective HARD-CORE. A central element of Helgadóttir’s artistic practice is her exploration of the ‘display’. She often works with musicians, incorporating live performance into her artworks. Helgadóttir brings to The Painted Bird her own personal reflection on European identity from the perspective of a peripheral nation with a long history of its own, and a sometimes-complicated relationship with the European project.
Helgadóttir’s work is kindly supported by the European Pavilion. The performance was curated by Carolyn F. Strauss of Slow Research Lab , Amsterdam