KRISTJÁN GUDMUNDSSON | Paintings in Gray and White Frames: Quint Contemporary Art: 7739 Drury Lane

Quint Contemporary Art is pleased to exhibit new works by Icelandic artist Kristján Gudmundsson. The exhibition, Paintings in Gray and White Frames, will be on view from February 5 through March 6, 2010. Kristján Gudmundsson’s work is defined by the essential, both in form and concept - working as he describes “within the tension that exists between nothing and something.”

Gudmundsson (born 1941) is an important and central figure of the first generation of Icelandic conceptual art - intelligent, severe, humoristic and poetic. Kristján began his career in the 1960s as a member of SÚM, a group of young artists, many of who were influenced by then-new currents in conceptual and installation art, mainly through the Fluxus movement. His seemingly meandering oeuvre consists of series of works that are surprising in their manifestations and, despite their different appearance, form an uncompromisingly consistent whole that respects the same values. He has masterfully joined Minimalism and Conceptualism. 

For his debut solo exhibition with Quint Contemporary Art, Gudmundsson will be exhibiting new sound absorbing paintings. These works consist of canvases painted in a single color and covered by mass-manufactured perforated grids normally used in the construction of sound-absorbing walls for building interiors. The result is as simple as can be but, as always with Kristján’s work, quite beautiful and multi-layered, evoking questions about the relationship of our different senses, the function of art and its possibilities. 

Gudmundsson is the recent recipient of the Carnegie Art Award (2009). He has participated in numerous museum exhibitions around the world including a solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Iceland (2008). His work belongs to the National Gallery of Iceland, the Reykjavik Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Oslo, and the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki. In 1982 Gudmundsson represented Iceland at the Venice Biennale.