Resonance

In Selárdalur, where time seems to pass more slowly and the works of sculptor Samúel Jónsson appear in the landscape like memories cast in concrete, different voices come together in a shared resonance. Artists working in Listvinnzlan create new works in close dialogue with Samúel‘s sculpture garden.

The main focus of the exhibition are sculptures that become part of Samúel‘s remarkable garden. His works were realised in Selárdalur, yet drew inspiration from around the world. Through his works he brought the world home to his valley.

Here, the artists engage with a new medium, a new space and new conditions; art that lives out in the open and is shaped by wind and weather. In his time, Samúel was marginalized as an artist. He was self-taught, unconventional and worked outside the mainstream. His experience resonates in the present, where disabled artists are still often pushed to the margins of the art scene. In this exhibition, a beautiful resonance forms between Samúel and the artists: a resonance between past and present, Reykjavík and Selárdalur, between the centre and the periphery, and between different generations.

The exhibition is an act of respect, a response, and a continuity; a living testimony to the fact that art finds its way, even – and perhaps, especially – beyond the conventional.