artversussport

I saw a spirit

2009-07-08T00:07:00.003+01:00

The other day me and my brother went to see my grandmother. She was looking for a singing pen, to give us. She is kind of old and memory is failing, some of you might know she has broken her hips three times, but she dances ( a funny dance) and pops around. She bent down on her knees to look, but the memory of the pen was gone.
She decided it was time for Kaialong (or however it is spelled). That kaialong knew where it was. I asked who he was. "The indian". She was still lying in a fixed position, I asked if he was here with us, if he was of our time. "No no he has many centuries behind him". Me and my brother remained quiet. Suddenly I felt something and I could see such a decisive look in my grandmother eyes, a second later the pen was in her hands.
On our way to the car me and my brother mentioned this - we kind of were in shock.
We had both noticed something.

ps. I am not being ironic or anything.

Behind a spirit, watercolour on paper, 2009.

the space between, watercolour on paper, 2009.

On a totally different note. I just can´t make up my mind on the Eto´o saga. Should he stay or go. I just know if he does not renew his contract he should go. I am not sure if we need fresh blood or if we should stick with him. I don´t want Zlatan though. Eto´o is a saint compared to Zlatan, but I admit Zlatan would be fun to paint.

Il padrino and the rebel, watercolour on paper, 2009.

While Barça were winning our third Champions

2009-06-03T00:20:00.005+01:00

Part 1

Bóndastúlkan (the farm girl), Manchester, Liverpool, Arsenal and Barcelona

While Barça were playing in the final against Manchester United, I was in Flatey, where there is very slow internet connection and no cable television (you could not see the game on regional television).
I admit I tried to forget about the game, but it proved difficult. Shortly after Eto´o scored the first goal I decided enough was enough. I needed some peace and quiet and good karma. I went to see the lambs, feed them their bottle, give them grass and just talk to them.
There used to be a male sheep called Eidur Smari, he is not alive anymore. His sister however is, and she is the mother of Arsenal. The little lamb Arsenal.

Arsenal

Barcelona

Liverpool

Now what?

2009-03-04T09:25:00.004Z

Falling, watercolour on paper, 2009.

Barça have taken a slump around the same time as Davíð Oddsson is gone, finally the three most demands of the Icelandic people have gone through. Buy buy government, buy buy Davíð Oddsson and buy buy the heads of the financial regulations.
It is a strange situation, with the election looming and I fear that they have managed to make the public belief in the "leftish-monster" and the votes will go the same way as always to Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (Independence party), but oh no, let´s be positive. The human nature is capable of learning. Or...
The spring is almost around the corner, we can now enjoy the snowy streets slightly longer as it starts to bright up around nine and is dark around seven. What a change from the cold long dark days of November and December. I will always remember them as kuldi kreppa og myrkur (cold, crisis and darkness).
It has not been an awful winter for me, I have been able to concentrate on what I need to concentrate on with moments of crisis of course, but moments of crisis is what makes one able to progress.

I would like to apply that to Barça. I refuse to belief in el cagometro, the shit metre, that Real Madrid are there to get us. That they will win the league in the end. I think the blimp is partly to do with concentration, of believing a job was done, but also with fatigue, more mental than physical. It is easier said than done, to have top mentality for two games a week, that fatigue is resulting in less pressure on the opposite team and a delay in decisions (passes, shots, tackles).

But spring is around the corner and my belief is intact. (I tell myself)

There is always hope to fall upon, watercolour on paper, 2009.

Iceland's Rainbow Revolution

2009-02-13T09:41:00.004Z

Male bonding, 2009.

Article published in
Grapevine

Prolouge:

By early afternoon on January 20th 2009, it was obvious that it was going to be a historic day. Just how the day, and the ones that followed, would unfold was not yet clear. When the dust had settled, a whole generation of Icelanders – and perhaps the country itself – had changed. For the better, and hopefully for good.

For 100 days, for longer than it took Napoleon to get from Elba to Waterloo, people had waited. The economy had collapsed, but so far there was no improvement to be seen, neither in the people guiding us nor the policies they set.

The one decision Parliament had made that would impact the country was when they announced just before Christmas that they would go on a month’s long vacation. At the same time, any idea of fresh elections had been written off as too time consuming. The MPs kissed each other on camera and announced that they would not be returning until January 20th. The politicians had set the starting date for a revolution.

Day 1. January 20th “The Revolution Has Begun”

It was the 105th day since the collapse of the Icelandic economy. It was the day Obama was sworn in as president of the United States, making his country once again a beacon of hope and of change. As for the people of Iceland, they would wait no longer.

Inside the old building, still bearing the mark of the Danish king, lawmakers were busy discussing how to best serve their people. One of the bills was a proposal whether to allow alcohol sales in supermarkets. Crisis? What crisis? Give them bread and games, give them beer and wine.

For once, Icelanders declined a drink.

A symbolic dance, 2009.

At 13.30, when Parliament was set to belatedly commence, thousands of people were already standing in front of the building, beating on drums, on pots and on pans, on anything they could find. Sailors brought their foghorns, others beat on wheelbarrows. “We are protesting against the lack of action and useless Ministers,” said three elderly ladies as they beat their spoons on teapots. They, like many others, had taken time off from work. “We are taking a long lunch break,” they said.

Slogans such as “The USA is getting rid of Bush today, we want to get rid of you” and “Yes, we can!” were inscribed on signs hung on a nearby tree. People surrounded the Parliament building on all sides, beating on every window in reach.

A few policemen stood behind the Parliament building in the adjacent garden. Standoffs between protesters and police had by now become commonplace, but patience was wearing thin on both sides. On New Year’s Eve, a policeman had his jaw broken by a protestor. Bad blood was in the air.

Riot police soon arrived on the scene, pushing everyone out of their way. They took up positions in front of the building, where they were pelted with eggs, with milk, with occasional trays of pasta and a local delicacy called skyr. Skyr, sometimes translated rather unappetisingly as curd, has long been local protesters weapon of choice. In 1972, Helgi Hóseasson threw it on MPs exiting the cathedral, to protest that he was not able to have his baptism annulled. In 2005, members of Saving Iceland threw green coloured skyr on aluminium producers at a local hotel to protest the damming of the highlands.

So far, though, eggs had been the protesters weapon of choice after the economic collapse. The police chose pepper spray. Before the week was through, both parties had expanded their arsenals.

One man threw a rock in the direction of the police. He missed, and was pulled back by others disapproving of the action. This was the only time anyone witnessed rock throwing in a cop’s direction that day, but was used by police chief Stefán Eiríksson to excuse subsequent actions of the police.

The garden was cleared with bursts of pepper spray, the police in some cases aiming over the wall at protestors who were out of reach. 26 people were arrested. Meanwhile, protesters in front of the building kept banging on anything available. They found their rhythm, and the chant “incompetent government,” that was to reverberate for the next days.

Anarchists wearing Red Cross armbands poured milk into the eyes of people who had been pepper sprayed before ambulances arrived. A special and official teargas-station (an ambulance and some buckets) was later set up to nurse those who were injured. Several cameramen and photographers had to seek aid there, having been sprayed while posing no threat to police. “Milk is good,” said a young protester who was seen drinking a carton, the white fluid still pouring from his eyes.

At six o clock, the Prime Minister made his escape through a tunnel leading into another building. It might have ended there had the police not attempted to move their prisoners into detention. The crowd surged forward, and for the first time since protests started, police used batons on people.

An older man standing by had his arm broken. His son, Þór Jóhannesson, was interviewed on television that evening. “The revolution has started,” he said.

The crowd, by that time thinning out, grew larger again. The mood resembled that of a national holiday. Everyone felt that it wouldn’t be long now until the government would fall. But we would soon learn that they would not go without a fight.

A bonfire was lit on the middle of the square. The Oslo Christmas tree, an annual gift from forested Norway to barren Iceland, was thrown onto the pyre, as were nearby park benches. The protests went on well into the night, until police eventually put out the fire.

Day 2, January 21st. Teargas Attack!

Protesters surrounded Geir Haarde’s car, as the embattled PM tried to leave the Government Office. People banged on the windows and shouted “resign,” before police and bodyguards drove the crowd away with their batons.

After standing in front of the Seat of Government for roughly an hour, the protesters then moved back to the Parliament building. The building was empty, as the session that day had been cancelled.

However, that was not why the crowd now remained deathly silent. A funeral was taking place in the Cathedral next door. For a full hour, not a pot was banged, not a saucepan hit. As soon as the funeral was over, however, the crowd burst into song and then resumed making noise with and on all available implements.

That evening, the Alliance Party’s Reykjavik chapter held a meeting in the National Theatre. Thousands of people arrived at the scene, lit a bonfire and chanted outside the meeting place. A red flag with a hammer and sickle was drawn up on a nearby flagpole. This was removed by anarchists and a black flag put up instead. The Red and the Black. The next day, a new colour would appear.

The people resumed their regular chant of “vanhæf ríkisstjórn,” – incompetent government. The chant seemed to grow ever louder, the percussion ever more rhythmic as the protests wore on. When the vice-chairman of the Alliance Party appeared on the steps and said that they were calling for elections next spring and an immediate end to the coalition government, the crowd briefly changed their chant to “Áfram Ísland!” – go Iceland.

Victory, however, was not yet at hand. With the Alliance Party leader, Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, on the operating table in Sweden, the resolution was non-binding.

The mood in front of the Theatre had been jovial, with many people bringing their whole families. However, as soon as the party meeting was over and most of the crowd started moving on, the occasional drunken skinhead said: “Get them,” or “flip their cars,” referring to the police. Bad mojo.

Parts of the crowd moved on to the Parliament building. The mood soon turned from celebratory to ugly. Riot police stood in front of the parliament building. When some policemen arrested a protester and tried to get him indoors, things soon took a turn for the worse. Some of the man’s friends surrounded the three policemen, kicking at them and impeding their progress along the sidewall of the parliament building. Riot police arrived to aid them. The police were backed up against the wall, while people threw fireworks, eggs, and, according to some reports, bags of faeces at them. The police then went on the offensive, using pepper spray and batons to clear the area at the side of the building.

Storming out from their positions, they pushed people back and formed a new defensive wall at the entrance to Vonarstræti (“Hope Street” – fancy that!).

Some anarchists charged the police shields, using their flagpoles as lances. Someone threw a rock, but was stopped by other protesters from doing this. A scuffle ensued. A rumour soon circulated that the police were running low on pepper spray.

The police were by now wearing gasmasks, lending credence to the rumour. Fireworks had been going off sporadically, but this time a different thunder was heard. Some people had thrown gasoline on to the Parliament doors, and set them on fire. Police responded by deploying teargas.

It was 60 years ago that teargas had last been deployed on this field. That time, it dispersed the protesters and the then government tear gassed its way into NATO. This time, the crowd would not be driven away so easily. The police fired teargas rounds again and again, 4 or 5 times, ten canisters in all. But the wind seemed to side with the people, blowing the gas back towards the police.

Eventually, the crowd withdrew back to the Government Offices. Some started beating on the windows with hammers. Seven riot policemen arrived, and brave men they were, as they were outnumbered roughly a hundred to one.

Some masked men were reported to be seen tearing up stones from the pavement and piling up, as if to form an arsenal. Rocks started flying again. A policeman was hit, all in all seven policemen were hospitalised that evening, one of them knocked unconscious. Bad mojo.

This time, however, a line of protesters moved up in front of the policemen, to form a human shield. An unprecedented act of solidarity with the public servants. The rock throwing ceased. Peace had been restored.

The crowd thinned out and eventually left at 3 am.

The Revolution, day 3, January 22nd. Enter the Orange Guard

The police force had been fought to a standstill. Police were visibly tired after the previous days’ events, their uniforms egg-stained and worn. It was said that not only had the entire Reykjavík police force been on duty those past few days, but they had called up reserves from the neighbouring towns of Keflavík, Selfoss and Akranes, over 55 desk-bound officers and even the police academy. They would be hard pressed to endure two more days of fighting.

The previous nights’ violence has caused a furore. Some protesters showed up wearing orange armbands, to indicate willingness to try to calm down those who intended to throw rocks. As the day wore on, orange was visible on most of the several hundred people on Austurvöllur. The scene started to look like the Orange revolution in the Ukraine. Or perhaps Serbia, when people handed flowers and hot chocolate to policemen.

At eight pm, protesters wearing orange armbands offered to relieve the police from their duties in guarding the Parliament building. This was accepted, and the policemen in riot gear left the scene. Only two policemen were left outside to patrol the building, while protests continued peacefully into the night.

Everyone was still waiting for the Alliance Party Chairman to return from Sweden. Like a sick king in a Shakespeare play, the future of the country rested on an ill leader. She had already said that she wanted elections that spring, but had no intention of abandoning the government coalition. Her party was dying at the polls, would party members force her to act?

As it turned out, the future of the country was indeed decided by a sickness, but not the one folks expected.

Day 4, January 23rd. Strike One for the Revolution

At 12.30, the Prime Minister called for a surprise press conference, which was broadcast directly on TV and radio. He announced that, due to a malignant throat tumour, he would not run for re-election in his own party before the general elections, which he said would be held on May 9th.

The Revolution had won its first major victory.

Protesters had again gathered outside the Parliament building. The anarchists had asked that the protests end at 7 PM, so as to lessen the chances of drunken brawling. No one knew what the weekend had in store. There was still no news on Gísladóttir, now back from Sweden. Would she and Haarde kiss and make up and continue ruling until May 9th? Would that soothe the crowds that have stood outside Parliament for four days?

That evening, the revolution underwent a name change on Channel Two news. So far, it had been called The Fleece Revolution, in reference to the sweaters some of the protesters were wearing. It would now be known as “Búsáhaldabyltingin.” This was soon translated in the International Press, a tad inaccurately, as “The saucepan revolution.” The Kitchenware Revolution is slightly better, but a part of this revolution will always be lost in translation. You probably had to be there.

Day 5, January 24th. Popular support.

For 16 weeks, Hörður Torfason had held protest rallies in front of the Parliament building every Saturday. The crowds had been growing ever since the collapse. During Christmas, the numbers went down a bit, which perhaps played a part in making the governing parties believe that revolution was not imminent. A cabinet reshuffle was called off.

After Christmas, the crowds started growing again. Now, we were in the midst of the revolution. The previous day, however, Torfason made his first gaffe. Hörður is a fighter at heart. A musician and actor, he was the first Icelander to come publicly out of the closet in the 70’s. After the economic collapse, people needed a focal point and he provided it.

However, when told the news of Haarde’s illness by a Morgunblaðið reporter, Torfason did not offer his sympathies, stating that personal life should be kept out of politics. He had a point. Still, the media outrage led many to believe that people might not show up this Saturday. The violence of the preceding days had also appalled many. Might people stay at home now, had the revolution lost popular support?

As it were: no. It may have been the largest turnout yet, At least 7,000 citizens showed up. Newspaper Fréttablaðið published poll that day said two thirds of the population favoured the protesters. The whole country (well, most of it) had gone orange.

This was a display of mass support that sealed the deal. Events now moved on under their own weight. As a larger crowd than ever stood outside the Parliament building chanting “incompetent government,” it became increasingly obvious that the government’s days were numbered.

The protests ended just after 19.00, to avoid drunkenness derailing the message. That evening, Spaugstofan, Iceland’s weekly and very popular comedy show, featured the protests. Their sympathies were obvious. The revolution had become mainstream.

One of the protesters main demands had been the resignation of former PM Davíð Oddsson as director of the Central Bank. To emphasise this, that evening’s protests were held outside the Nordica Hotel, where the Bank was having their annual party. Upwards of 100 people showed up, pots and pans en tow. One older gentleman had gone to a hardware store and bought up their whole supply of kitchenware. He drove up in his station wagon, and asked people to choose their weapons, a one-man arsenal of democracy.

The police seemed more interested in keeping the peace than upholding the law. At first, they asked the protesters to not violate private property and stay out of the driveway. When this was ignored, they simply asked them to not break any windows. They even asked those wearing Orange to make sure that windows remained unbroken, yet another indicator that the city’s authority had passed on to the people.

By midnight, Oddsson left via a back entrance, escorted home in a police car. Representatives of the protestors were eventually allowed in to confirm that the party was winding down and that everyone had left.

Day 6, January 25th. On to the Central Bank

The day started eventfully enough, with Björgvin G. Sigurðsson, the Minister of Business, resigning. One of his last acts in office was to fire the Financial Supervisory Authority.

Even though his apology was somewhat half-hearted, he did admit to bearing “some political responsibility” for the collapse. It was still the first example of any leader taking responsibility.

By noon, protesters started gathering outside the Parliament building. The crowd was small compared to the previous day, but still a reminder that people weren’t going anywhere. One of them carried a sign with the demands. He could now tick off two boxes: elections this spring, and a new FSA.

That evening, people left the Parliament Square and headed for the Central Bank instead.

The continued presence of Oddsson was now the major stumbling block for continued co-operation between the two government parties.

The anarchists were first on the scene. There had been an absence of fire in the previous few days, but now a bonfire was lit. Soon after, the Orange Orchestra arrived. The chant now had gone from “incompetent government” to “incompetent bank management.”

Some people brought marshmallows, others acoustic guitars and old chestnuts such as “The Times They Are A-Changing” and “Power to the People.” There was almost a hint of sadness in the air. We all knew that the next day either the government would fall or Oddsson would be forced out. In either case, the revolution would surely be winding down. But one has to know how to win gracefully.

The fire department showed up well after midnight, when there were only three people left. “Excuse us, can we put out the fire?” they asked, and then did, when it seemed no one would protest.

“Did you have fun?” a policeman asked. He was not being sarcastic. He was being nice. A lone anarchist allegedly broke a security camera outside the bank. Other than that, peace remained.

Day 7, January 26th. The Government Surrenders

“It started like it ended, with a kiss,” said Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde when he announced that the present coalition government was at an end. The government had started with a famous kiss between the Prime Minister and Alliance Party Chief Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir in the spring of 2007. The government had a two-thirds Parliamentary majority and would have remained in power until the spring of 2011, but for the country‘s economic collapse. Some members of the Alliance Party are now referring to it as “The kissing government.” More venal tongues might call it the kiss of death, as both party chiefs had been diagnosed with cancer and the government was at an end.

The Prime Minister went to meet the President, who is the titular Head of State, to tend his resignation at 16.00. Shortly thereafter, the last remaining protesters left their posts outside the Parliament building. All was quiet on the Northern Front.

A party was called that evening, to celebrate the success of the revolution. No one showed up. Everyone, it seems, was exhausted. The bill for the weeks’ riots and protests was assumed by the police to be around 20 million ISK – straight out of taxpayers’ pockets. Rarely have so many spent so little to achieve so much.

Coda:

On January 27th, the President announced that he would give the mandate to form a new government to the Alliance Party, with the Left-Greens.

The day after, NATO held a mid-level meeting in Reykjavík. The hard-core of the protesters, flush with success, gathered outside the Nordica Hotel again, where the meeting was in session. Around 70 were present in all, bearing pots and pans.

This time, the police were in a different mood. Protecting a building full of Admirals and Generals, they needed a show of force. The police virtually outnumbered the protesters. They arrested people with impunity. Some were jailed for throwing snowballs, others for burning the NATO flag which, it later turned out, is not illegal. One person was pepper sprayed. Six were arrested, despite the protest being peaceful in nature. The people had made their voices heard inside Parliament, but they had again lost control of the streets.

As a further indication of this, no one but the media showed up for a protest planned outside the Central Bank on February 2nd. Then again, was there really anything to protest? That same day, the new PM called the director and asked him to resign. At the time of writing, Oddsson still sits in the Central Bank, everyone but he knowing that his days are numbered. He started his career as an actor, playing the part of deranged despot Ubu Roy. It seems he will end his career the way he started it.

The lead character in Alfred Jarry’s play has been described thus: “Ubu inhabits a domain of greedy self-gratification. Jarry's metaphor for the modern man, he is an antihero — fat, ugly, vulgar, gluttonous, grandiose, dishonest, stupid, jejune, voracious, cruel, cowardly and evil.”

Such modern men no longer ruled the country. The day before, on February 1st, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, Minister of Social Affairs and Alliance Party member, became the new Prime Minister. It was only fitting that the protests which had been organized by the first Icelandic person to come out of the closet should lead to the world’s first officially instated gay head of state. The Rainbow Revolution had ended with victory. Iceland finally had something to be proud of again.

Commedia dell´arte, 2009.

Cold February Night

2009-02-11T20:01:00.003Z

Guided by a Sacred hand, 2009.

"Cinema is identical to life, because each one of us has a virtual and invisible camera which follows us from when we're born to when we die. In reality cinema is an infinite film sequence-shot. Each individual film interrupts and rearranges this infinite sequence-shot and thus creates meaning, which is what happens to us when we die. It is only at our moment of death that our life, to that point undecipherable, ambiguous, suspended, acquires a meaning. Montage thus plays the same role in cinema as death does in life."
Pasolini, "Ora tutto è chiaro, voluto, non imposto dal destino", Cineforum 68 October 1967, p. 609

Bums, 2009.

Áfram Ísland

2009-01-26T15:10:00.003Z

Patria, 2009.

Finally someone has taken the responsibility for the actions that put us in this shit.
The government has now ruptured, finally. I seriously hope that some measures will be taken, more than 100 days after the fall of the entire banking system. It is a strange feeling that the Independence party is not in power. I sincerely believe that nothing can be as bad as the former existing government. The left green party warned in 2005 against the danger of the over bloating finance system. Obviously no one listened.
I want Davíð Oddson away, the former prime minister and now the head of the central bank. The very man who sold off the banks. I also want to see frozen assets of the men (they were mainly men) who put the country into this mess. Remember that experts say that even if there would be no global crisis, Iceland would have gone bankrupt. It is not about that liquidity was suddenly scarce. It is about that they were wheeling and dealing illegally, with suspected corruption and a certain lawlessness.
I heard yesterday that the man who was one of the brains to Icesave is now head of the internal investigation of Landsbanki (one of the banks that the state took over). Yes the very same people who got the country in the mess are still in their jobs. The wealing and dealing men are still wealing and dealing.
I just hope to see a healthier Iceland, more aware and conscious about future generations.

There is hope

2009-01-22T16:57:00.004Z

Female control, 2009.

Ten Reasons I want a change
1. The same people who slept deeply during the viking outrage are not capable of taking the country out of the mess.
2. There won´t be any investigations while those are in power.
3. I suspect that there is serious corruption behind the curtains.
4. The arrogance of the country´s leaders.
5. They call us skríl, a pejorative of a person.
6. The same accountants that approved the accounts of the bank are investigating the banks.
7. Davíð Oddson is still head of the central bank.
8. No assets of those 38 vikings have been frozen.
9. IMF.
10. They totally neglected all signs that it was just a plain bubble and called everyone jealous who told them of the risks (foreign or non-foreign)

The protests have grown rowdier and rowdier. No people have not forgotten, they were not going to.
After the Christmas holiday, the governments first point at the agenda, was if beer should be sold in corner shops or not. What an insult.

There have been almost non-stop protests in front of the parliament, with pots and pans and eggs and paint. People from all classes and ages have been attending. The people are just seriously fed up.

Last night the Social democrats (in coalition with the right party) held a meeting, where elections were discussed. The protests stood outside the National theatre (where the meeting was held) and sang the government out (no eggs, no paint). Finally the news came that yes, they want a rupture and yes they want to call elections some time this spring.

Ps. I want to mention one thing to be proud of, while the protesters were singing and banging outside the parliament, there was a funeral in the church next door and the protesters stood quiet for half an hour in respect of the family. Is that what you call a skríl. I hope the government has understood that this is the people, this is the nation. And we want a change.

I do not though want to celebrate anything yet, as I want to see that rupture and I want to see those elections.

And last of all - I seriously hope the nation won´t vote the same incapable idiots again.

Oh Lord, don´t forget me, 2009.

You can see pictures of the demonstration
here
and here

Icesave Iceslave

2009-01-20T21:09:00.005Z

Another great phrase I saw at the demonstration last saturday.
It seems the protest is intensifying, after several peaceful meeting the heat is certainly up.
For more detailed explanation I recommend this
Iceland-Dori
I seriously have difficulties understanding that our government is still there.
They look more corrupt for each day, same people, who got us in the shit.

Falling, 2009.

Tomorrow Barcelona Espanyol. I certainly hope we will beat them and I have no regrets if we beat them, really beat them. Espanyol is not a team I am particularly fond of, mainly because of their cry baby attitude and their fans, who booed their own goalkeeper Kameni (he is black).

The January blues is almost over, there is more and more hours of sun and the air has been really crisp. I just have to get myself out of town to see the Northern lights.
Good news is that I am going to Flatey in march. To collect seaweed.

Ground control, 2009.

Helvítis Fokking Fokk

2009-01-19T16:14:00.007Z

She lost control.

The greatest phrase of the Icelandic kreppa (crisis) and it could refer to the Icelandic situation or the situation in Gaza, which I truly condemn.
Perhaps it is a bit indulgent, but I am referring to these paintings. That there is no success without failure. Or at least so do I hope. I tried so hard to make them work, perhaps I will make a last attempt. In the future. For now I just say Helvítis Fokking Fokk!!!

No success without failure

Trying too hard

From 2008 - 2009

2009-01-05T16:01:00.006Z

Blood of a lonely soldier, 2009

The death of a former giant, 2009

2008 ended with the same thing as 2009 started, the smell of fireworks. I love the fireworks in Iceland, not the organised, methodic exhibition that occurs in other countries, but the chaotic, anarchic and individual fireworks of each household. Rocketing into the sky. One after another, you never know where to look or where to jump. It simply comes from each and one direction. This year it seem to be a much more subtle affair, only lasting for about 30 minutes, with the peak between midnight and fifteen minutes past midnight. Last year, it was meant to be less as there was a slight storm, but no. It was a total bombardment for about one hour. The noise was incredible, like the bird Kríur at an attack. My brother Magnús, said it sounded just like Palestina. I remember Jón Ásgeir shot up constantly with boxes full of them. I guess and hope that this year he was a bit quiter. Jón Ásgeir for those who might not know is one of the biggest villain of this crisis, a man that should be in jail, for continuously breaking the law in Iceland. Somehow he is not. People have seen him as a heroe, until now. He is the former owner of Glitnir (amongst others), and Baugur Group (the House of Fraser, Magasin du Nord etc). Enough of him. I just say he does not forget the sugar in the cookies (a classic comment in my home).

Frustration of a young man, 2009

On one of the first days of January, I experienced something I never had experienced before, and somehow kind of wanted to experience. The last ten minutes of a life. The hands reaching out, either grasping life or trying to enter the next level (although I am not sure I believe in that stuff). I will never forget the look in the eyes as death approached. The colour of the skin, the mouth, my own non sensations as I stopped to sense anything. Perhaps I am a pervert and I really would like to film someone I love dying, but it has to be someone who wants to go, who has had enough of life (as that moment might happen), enough of experiences and is just tired of life. Where death becomes a relief. I hope you meet your loved ones again, or that you are able to follow your loved ones in life. I sometimes think that I have angels following me (yes it sounds cheesy), but I am somehow quite lucky in many senses and I think I know who my angels are.

Rebirth, 2009

This year I am going to go to a fortune teller, there is a famous one, called Óli Draugur, Óli the ghost. I doubt I will talk about what happens there. I am scared, but also prepared. For 2009

I got new watercolour pans, lovely and I had to try them out, even if I should be doing something else. Here is the result. My favourite themes; sexy bodies and fragility.

Nipples, 2009

Barça, they continue with this conviction they left 2008 with.

Aiming high for the future, 2009

i am a mess, you are a mess, they are a mess, everyone is a mess, 2009
The only thing I am content with in this particular watercolour is its title.

Resurrection, 2009

El clásico

2008-12-30T12:42:00.006Z

Evil against good

STOP (any method valid)

Make your mother proud

STOP

Two against one

Hopefully more will follow, I got some new colours, so exciting times ahead...

Anecdotes

2008-12-23T15:21:00.003Z

Anecdotes from Iceland
Edition of 50, printed on to the cheapest grey paper, put in an airmail envelope.
2007

Anecdotes from a hospital
Edition of 50, printed on to the cheapest beige paper, put in a brown b5 envelope.
2008

Busy week

2008-12-17T00:44:00.004Z

Prelude to battle

I have not had time to paint any new pictures, busy preparing Christmas and working on my film, which is slowly slowly going somewhere even if that somewhere is nowhere near where I want it.
Some people might have heard of my grandmother.
The one who is in touch with pixies, elfs, but not hobgoblins.
The one we believe was Napoleon in her former life and the one that can be funny, but can be annoying.
The only person in Iceland who seems to like Davíð Oddsson, the head of the central bank. My dear Davíð, like she calls him.
A while ago she asked for a Liverpool picture, as she had read in the paper that a young boy who was dying of cancer was taken to see a Liverpool game by the Icelandic supporter club. It was one of his last dreams. She wanted to give the supporter club, that was later created in his memory a picture.

I am not sure if it is too "erotic" for them, or...

Next on for painting, are pictures from el clásico, I already have them in mind.
Violence and sexuality.

Entangled

Ghost appearances

The Final ecstasy

2008-12-14T13:49:00.004Z

It had to be in the last minutes of the game. Samuel Eto´o who loves little more than scoring against his old club, the club invited him to Europe as a fifteen year old, the club who forgot to pick him up at the airport when he arrived in shorts on a snowy winter day.

Madrid were kind of in control of the game and I admit that I just knew that they would score in the final minutes. They were Madrid. It would have been so typical. Playing like a Logroñes or another team who aspires to little more glory than get a point against the big teams.

Barcelona were anxious, too anxious. It had all been about revenge and as we all know revenge is not a very constructive word or action. They tried and tried, but Madrid marked Barça´s main men very well, with legal and border line tackles.

Messi received three hars tackles on his ankles in the first minutes. And so it continued until in the final minutes when Eto´o scored from a corner. Yes a corner, Barcelona have scored from more corners in twelve games than previous two years.

In they dying minute Messi scored a beautiful goal that sent 98 000 spectators into an ecstatic frenzy.

I walked home through the snow with a sweet sense of victory.

Hopefully it is only the beginning.

I leave two extracts from Cadena Ser - a Madrid based radio station.
Paintings to follow.

First goal

Second goal

Last time

2008-12-08T12:46:00.004Z

Last time Barcelona met Real Madrid I watched it, we all knew what would happen, but I decided to watch it and be in front of the television on time. On time to see one of the greatest humiliations in recent times (external humiliation, some would say fictitious humiliation). I wanted to watch el pasillo, when Barcelona were forced to clap their and my eternal enemy on to the pitch. To congratulate them on the title. The title we were never in the race for. Not only that hurt, but what came after was equally painful. I can´t remember the result, I can´t remember the game. I just know it was painful. In order to never ever forget. Almost like the most awful human causes and actions I decided to paint el pasillo. I never wanted to forget, I wanted that moment to be stamped in, rubbed in. It is something I simply do not want ever to live through. Again. (at least not for some time). Some moments have to be worked through, go through their psychoanalytical cycle to become something else.

I am not sure what will happen next week, worst case scenario 6 points ahead, best case scenario 12 points ahead. Real Madrid arrive wounded, hurt. It only remains to be seen if they have the strength to rise above or if they will sink further.

News from a Frozen Island called Iceland

2008-12-01T16:52:00.005Z

Here is a blog by someone in Iceland

Dori

Love the picture of the woman sitting outside the parlament with her dog.
Our parlament is so tiny. Ha ha ha.
I went in there the other day to pick up car keys from my mother´s friend who is not in the government, but in
the parlament

So many people are attending. almost 10 000 a week ago, last saturday only about 4-5000, it was minus four. I was working.

Now people have invaded the central bank, demanding explanations.
We have accepted IMF´s loan. Apparently to strengthen the krona, to allow it to fall further.
Shame shame shame.

On mondays there are citizens meetings. There have been three. I have attended two. On the last one they demanded that the government show up.
They felt forced to after failing to attend previous two. Had to answer questions. it was packed out of the door and
broadcast live on television. I spoke to someone in the hospital, an old man. He thinks they should or we should have elections.
It was quite an experience to be there. To look in to people´s face. it was fairly civilized, but oh they are angry. Middle aged woman so disgusted by the situation.

yes in a way we could see it coming. But how complaisant human beings can be. Now it is looming them in the face and I guess people won´t forget, like with wars in a far away country, as they are reminded each month.

Jón Ásgeir, one of the big business man here, if not the biggest one is offering people to do their christmas shopping interest free for six months in his supermarket Hagkaup. Buy on credit. Has been the motto of this tiny island for so long.

On the other hand, I am having trouble with a hoblegoblin.
First he hid a mini dv tape, now he has hidden one woolie sock. Not sure what I can do to get in touch.
I had a shower, wore woolie socks before the shower. Not in the shower.
Then suddenly it was not there, only one of the pair. So strange. It is a thick thick sock.
So difficult to just disappear.
On my night shift last night I was hearing stories from a farm.
Weird ones. How things just moved. Only two woman living on the farm.
they are definetely being tricked by this hoble goble.

In the cow house there is a wooden stick, really heavy, suddenly with only one person in the cow house, it had travelled 6 metres.
Uphill...

One woman was riding on a horse, just before a crossroad she saw a man with four horses. White horses.
He looked old and was the old man from the next farm. When the woman arrived to the crossroad the man just disappeared. With the four horses. She later spoke to the son, who said strange - my father has not gone horseriding this year at all.
And last year another man told me of exactly the same story about my dad, seeing him with four white horses in the same place.

Hobgoblins are fun, but they can make you slightly squizoid.

The dark cold long crisis winter

2008-11-18T08:53:00.004Z

Together

These are notes, notes of thought, written without any depth. I probably contradict myself and upon better thought.
First of all Iceland - what did I wake up to? I think it is obviously mostly the politicians, the bankers and the so called control agency to blame. But honestly almost everyone I know has been living to an excess. "I have 20 jumpers, but none is yellow, so I bought one dark yellow and one mustardy yellow jumper". Including myself. We are living in times of a total consumption, even cultural consumption. Or perhaps we are just hamstering for worse times. I fear that all this will lead to a patriotism without any criticisms. It is not like Iceland is not a proud nation. It was interesting to be abroad as an Icelander in the middle of the storm. Suddenly it was not WOW, but ooooooohhhh. Not Björk anymore, but poor little pathetic nation. Fifty days after the crash no one has taken any decisions and it seems that nothing at all is done or will done. We will just sail into oblivion.
Ahead of us is the long dark cold crisis winter.
But I fear nothing.

Untitled heroes
What I do fear though is Nóra. I have found the best christmas present of them all. In a test glass you put shit (if you are totally fearless) or a piece of cloth is contaminated with this little virus. You can use it against the person you hate the most. Spread it all over them, touch them with it and they will fall down like a shot bird. Vomits and diarreah for a week. Marvellous weapon. Or you can use it as a tool to loose weight. Perhaps if you can get hold of them, you can use it against the prime minister, the "so called" head of the central bank or alike monsters.

A pleasure light at the back of the dark tunnel is Barcelona. We will have to wait what happens in December, when they meet Valencia, Sevilla and Real Madrid. There seems to be a togetherness that was there in the two marvellous years of Rijkaard. They grind their teeth and show a believe and a willing to win and to please that I feel proud of. I love my team to work for a beautiful victory. Patriotism aside, it does make me proud to have that many homegrown players. Valdés, Pique, Puyol, Busquets, Iniesta, Xavi, Bojan and Messi. Please make my winter.

United against the enemy

Excitement

2008-10-29T21:26:00.003Z

Faceless, but not soulless

I have rarely been so excited lately, a perverse kind of excitement. The news. Iceland frantic cleaning up vomits. More on that later though, to keep something for the future. Hold the hands of your children and just wait.

Barcelona.
They seem to be scoring more goals than ever. I have missed them all, saw some over a broken line in Portugal, but they looked clinical, intuitive, forceful.
I have to say I am not too convinced of Guardiola, as a person. There is something in there that make me feel that he is a bit too arrogant, but so far the results and more than that is in his wind. I guess I am too sentimental and hurt that Rijkaard´s way did not work out. For me it was almost a blow to humanity. That one can´t just allow people and trust in people´s own dignity. The rise and fall of the ego. Impossible to control and when you try it is simply too late. He had to go, I agree that, but I can´t help but feel disappointed that it was a way that is incompatible with football at the highest level. To allow people to choose, the non-authoritative way.
I guess I was naive.

Rijkaard and his lonely shadow

2008-09-29T12:23:00.004+01:00

Enjaulado (jailed)

Come to me

Don´t cry on my shoulder

For some reason I am not too obessessed with arranging my life according to the games of Barcelona, like I did more than a year ago. I feel that somehow they have to prove that it is worthwhile adjusting my schedule. I used to be obsessed, I used to arrange my dinner parties according to when Barcelona plays. But not know. Let´s hope for the good of ones health that it changes. To what it was like a couple of years ago.

Ps. The last watercolour (don´t cry on my shoulder) should have the MY pronounced loud. I was not that happy about those two at the time and I think you can see it in the effort and love I did not put into the picture.

Perhaps my favourite place on earth

2008-09-22T15:59:00.006+01:00

The village of Flatey. I have recently stayed there, but my memories remain with the farmer. My favourite farmer. The farmer who used to live by herself, for many many years. One house, who are not her friends and a boat that arrives once a week.

It was always my dream as a kid to drive one of those. It was my dream to live between sheeps and cows. Be one of them. But... I became a city kid.

Never ever touch these eggs, the owners are one incredibly aggressive. I was attacked by one. No not close to the egg. the sound of Krían is although very very impressive. The amount of sound they make. Not among my favourite birds.

This is so so Bergmanesque - it reminds me of a scene of the Seventh Seal.
I was baptised there by a very drunken priest, who lived on the mainland.

Exhibition Barcelona - 18 Sep - 14 Nov

2008-09-18T08:57:00.008+01:00

Poster Exhibition (made by Santiago)

Poetry

In total ecstasy (sexual)

Annoyed figure

In Culturas, La Vanguardia

2008-09-10T07:53:00.006+01:00

10 Sep this was published in La Vanguardia. On friday I think I have something in the UEFA CHAMPIONS magazine.

FEVER PITCH - an article from frieze

2008-09-07T00:21:00.002+01:00

The art of football

Juergen Teller filmed himself watching the 2002 World Cup final (Germany lost 2–0 to Brazil). Eyes on the television set, he twists and shouts, stewing with bullish rage. He later said that this film was ‘the most disturbing thing’ he’d ever seen.1

‘Zidane’s melancholy is my melancholy,’ explains the narrator of a story by Jean-Philippe Toussaint. Watching the infamous 2006 World Cup final during which Zidane was sent off for headbutting Italian defender Marco Materazzi, he becomes absorbed by the player’s weariness, by ‘the intoxication of fatigue and nervous tension. I know it,’ he confesses, ‘I have nourished it and I feel it.’2

Harun Farocki’s 12-channel video projection Deep Play (2007) unpacks the visual archive of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) for the same match. Farocki’s spectators have to tear themselves away from his installation – even knowing the outcome, gallery-goers drop their masks of cool sophistication in their compulsion to watch this two-hour drama unfold again and again, from impossible angles and in overwhelming statistical detail.

Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (2006) pushes that geometry to a new level by training 17 cameras on Zidane for the duration of a Real Madrid match. Isolated from the game by the camera’s focus, we wait with Zidane for the pass, for the attack. The soundtrack layers Scottish band Mogwai and crowd noise, the slap of foot against ball and the scratch of Zidane’s boot against the pitch. Over 90 minutes he smiles and laughs once in an exchange with a teammate. The singularity of this moment tells us he is at work. The film reveals nothing so well as Zidane’s expert control over his face.

Unlike that of 20-year-old football stars, lithe from running around and fond of diamond studs and long, flowing hair (Dimitar Berbatov or Lionel Messi), Zidane’s is a hard, menacing beauty. Gordon and Parreno’s film would have had an entirely different tone had they chosen an exuberant or openly flirtatious subject. Ronaldinho smiles every minute he is on the field, no matter how badly things are going. David Beckham’s audience is packed with fewer Marxist art critics (who prefer their subjects miserable) and with more women and gay men – as was the case for Sam Taylor-Wood’s video David (2004), a film of the footballer sleeping which functions as a homage to Andy Warhol’s Sleep (1963).

Gordon and Parreno cite Andy Warhol’s films as an inspiration, but it is hard to see the connection: Zidane … is too beautiful, too controlled, too glossy. You can buy the DVD in supermarkets in France – a sign of how deeply the film co-operates with and expands Zidane’s celebrity. It has much more in common with Warhol’s portraits.

The real Warholian moment of football cinema is Hellmuth Costard’s film Fußball wie noch nie (Football as Never Before, 1971). A point of reference for Zidane… and due for a European DVD re-release this summer, the film takes the famously charming George Best as its subject and edits multiple camera views to produce a real-time portrait of the player singled out during the course of an entire match. Lest we miss the homoerotic subtext of football art (and football culture), the half-time interval features a cruisey bit of filmmaking as we follow Best through a narrow hallway and into what looks like the boot room. Best turns and faces the camera for nearly three minutes. He holds our gaze as long as he can, pursing his lips, looking away and then back in a seemingly overt homage to the Warholian screen test. Best strikes a deal here with the camera, inviting us to look at him when he takes the field again; shots of his socks, his shoulders and his crotch seem to go on for ever.

In her ongoing watercolour diary Yrsa Roca Fannberg sneaks onto Barcelona’s pitch. These small, moody paintings are close cousins to Costard’s film and an important counterpoint to work such as Deep Play and Zidane… Costard and Fannberg give the lie to the game’s open secret. Football is a deeply sentimental space of male intimacy. Players explode in ecstasy, but they also love each other in more ordinary ways. They collapse in frustration, they cry. They are lost and wounded. They wrap their arms around each other and talk.

Eduardo Galeano (the Roland Barthes of football writing) describes ‘the history of soccer’ as ‘a sad voyage from beauty to duty’. That ‘duty’ is paid to the sports ‘telecracy’, in which ‘functionaries specialize in avoiding defeat’.3 Artists respond to this aspect of the game with melancholy and nostalgia – and often both. In ‘big’ art such as Farocki’s installation and Gordon and Parreno’s film, both of which were made in collaboration with that telecracy, the game itself is a receding horizon of pure experience in which the player dissolves with a pivot and a swing of the foot. His body – how it feels to be him – is beyond the reach of any representation. Technology and telecracy unite in the erasure of the player’s body, and his pleasure, from the picture. Roca Fannberg counters that theft by choosing as her medium a very simple dissolve of water on paper to capture how our moods, our thoughts, our legs get entangled with theirs. If the player dissolves, it is with us, and in tears.

The game is excised from the less romantic experimental film Substitute (2006) but not out of any formal trick. Fred Poulet gave his friend Vikash Dhorasoo a Super-8 camera so that the latter might keep a cinematic diary of his summer performances for the French national team during their 2006 World Cup run. The project was a disaster. Dhorasoo’s teammates refused to be filmed. Some, such as Zidane and Thierry Henry, are global brands; their images are trademarked. In spite of having featured in qualifying matches, Dhorasoo scarcely left the bench – many think the film project was to blame. Filming training is off limits, and the telecracy owns the game. The camera isolated Dhorasoo; we hardly ever leave his hotel room. His footage is grainy, often out of focus, while the narrative is sparse and grim. We track Dhorasoo’s struggle to keep his alienation and bitterness in check. Poulet and Dhorasoo replace the macho heroics of wounded masculinity with a far more compelling truth of exile, desire and resentment. The film ends not with a defiant geste but with Dhorasoo climbing the stairs to his apartment and sitting down at a table to open a large stack of mail.

1 Cited by Liz Hoggard in ‘This is for You, Dad’, The Observer, Sunday 14 September 2003
2 Jean-Philippe Toussaint, ‘Zidane’s Melancholy’, in New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics, 62, 2007, pp. 12–14
3 Eduardo Galeano, Soccer in Sun and Shadow, Verso, London, 1998

Jennifer Doyle

Jennifer Doyle is the author of Sex Objects: Art and the Dialectics of Desire (2006) and blogs about football at From a Left Wing.

Lost but alive

2008-08-25T12:10:00.003+01:00

In a whip I deleted the folder, and emptied the trash. Went swimming, came back and I just couldn´t believe what had happened. Unable to speak, unable to cry. I just stared at my computer. Went on google, the best friend in these circumstances and found some kind of programme that recovered files. Going through these files is a different matter. Once the computer starts to write over the files, they gain an immense beauty, as you can see:

I am alright now, it was a good clearout at least and I can start a new fresh start. Free of the burden of a past. But it is or was annoying, to say the least.

Crisp Summer Night

2008-08-02T22:54:00.003+01:00

Pasillo
Generally I am not a masochist, but I decided to do this painting as some kind of therapy. I really do hope I never ever have to experience this again and the player should use it as their screensaver in order to remind themselves again and again this must never ever happen again.

Structuring Unreality
Two of my favourite players. Not playing for the same team. Don´t ask me about the title, I was short of imagination.