Courtesy the artists

Darri Lorenzen in collaboration with Orn Helgason, Egill Kalevi Karlsson, Thor Sigurthorsson, "Altostratus Suite" (2006). Mixed-media installation, dimensions variable

October 2008 Field Guide

Firstenberg Curates California

Eugene Carchesio

Cinema Remixed and Reloaded

Dark Continents

Cildo Meireles's Dark Materials

Rivane Neuenschwander

Franz West

Lois and Franziska Weinberger

Tadao Ando's Stone Hill Center

Le Futurisme a Paris

The Tropics: Views From The Middle of The Globe

Nam June Paik Art Center

Museums in the 21st Century: Concepts, Projects, Buildings

Donald Judd Matthew Barney Joseph Beuys Ingolfur Arnarsson Jan Voss Deitch Defends Dakis Joannou Show at the New Museum Much Ado About Beuys A Showdown for Doig at Christie’s

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In the late 1970s, a new avant-garde art movement began to emerge in Iceland. Rooted in Conceptual art, performance, and Fluxus— and stemming from Iceland’s own ’60s-era SUM group of artists—this movement was modestly called nýlist (completely unrelated to the nihilists), or new art. In need of an exhibition space that would be simpatico with its performative demands, as well as with its collaborative philosophy, some of the members founded nýlistasafnið, or the Living Art Museum. This year, the vaunted artist-run museum is celebrating its 30th anniversary by hosting a spate of exhibitions, including a showing of its renowned collection (which includes more than 1,000 donated works by Finnbogi Pétursson, Dieter Roth, Matthew Barney, Dorothy Iannone, Jan Voss, and Joseph Beuys, among others) and a group exhibition opening this month that features artists young and old, including BJ Nilsen, Darri Lorenzen, Ingólfur Arnarsson, Mika Vanio (Pan sonic), as well as Pétursson. Most of the latter are united by their interest in sound art: Nilsen, a young Swede, is known for his constellation-like field recordings, while the celebrated icelandic artist Pétursson captures the aural phenomena of water, wind, metal, and fire. The exception to the noise fest might be elder statesman Ingólfur Arnarsson, whose wildly minimal drawing and paintings series (Donald Judd was a fan) take light and shadow—and perhaps silence—as their dominant subject.

"Open" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' October 2008 Table of Contents.