Download or “Drawing” at the exhibition “Drawing Iceland” in G

During the summer of 2001, Harpa Árnadóttir exhibited the work “Teikning” or
“Drawing” at the exhibition “Drawing Iceland” in Gallery 54 in Gothenburg.
“Drawing Iceland” was an exhibition of minimalist drawings by Icelandic artists.
Besides Harpa, Ingólfur Arnarson, Kristján Guðmundsson Sigurður Guðmundsson,
Hreinn Finnsson, Finnbogi Pétursson, Ragna Róbertsdóttir and Ingileif Thorlacius
were all represented. The work “Teikning” was an eraser that had been placed upon a
white, 120 cm high pillar. The eraser was large, (5,7 x 3 and 6 x 1,7 cm), linnen
white, and in a soap bar like shape, most similar to Lux soap. On the edges the eraser
had black marks that showed it had obviously been used in the way it was meant to
be.
What meening does a used eraser have in connection to a drawing exhibition?
Perhaps, this eraser was the heart of the exhibition, the materializing of drawing
Iceland – an island full of drawings, of which each line is filled with promises. The
beginning and finalization of all, or the black hole (though white) that pulls
everything towards it. A clump, full of images that haven't yet been drawn or ideas
that have yet to be expressed. Perhaps it is what lies in the unconsciousness that we
don't wish to bring into the open, our hidden existence. There are so many drawings,
we are never allowed to see. It is interesting to imagine what has been censored,
disappeared, and why.
The eraser has the shape of a bar of soap. One uses soap to wash away – things like
unwelcome smudges.
“Teikning” is a minimalist and conceptual work with roots in Duchamp, but the
expression readymade comes from him. From the year 1914 Duchamp created many
readymades, that are works put together from objects that already had some specific
uses. These readymade pieces revolve around themselves. The onlooker completes
the work according to his own experience.
Harpa´s eraser is that kind of readymade, ready to use, placed on a pedestal – but here
it is not the object in itsef that is important, rather what this object is used for. It is
really an erased drawing on the pedestal; a drawing we aren't allowed to see. What
kind of a drawing is hidden in the eraser? To erase something is like the gesture of
stopping someone in their steps. Perhaps he was drawing the forbidden; the face of
God.
Is there something holy hidden within the eraser? How can it disappear without
trace? The core must still be there.
Edmund Burkes descriptions in his Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and the
Beautiful on how one can get a greater effect through minimalism come to mind when
Harpa´s work is examined: ... “a comparatively small quantity of matter to produce a
grander effect than a much larger quantity disposed in another manner”
The eraser on its pedestal – a statue, a still life, to meditate and stop the flow of time.
To call an eraser a drawing is in itself a performance – a witness to what was done.
What is stored within the eraser is more than anything else the artists own presence –
her fingerprints. Perhaps Harpa is encouraging us to grab the eraser as we view the
exhibition.
In 1958, Yves Klein exhibited an empty room at the Gallery Clert in Paris. The work
was called “Emptiness”. The completely empty room was nothing more than an idea.
The curious audience had been fooled. Just like Ives Klein, Harpa teases her
audience. An empty room and an erased or unfinished drawing will not let us be. We
want to experience and enjoy, but the piece of chocolate, the esthetic experience, is
taken away from us. Instead we get a caramel that stretches the imagination in every
direction.
Besides “Teikning” Harpa exhibited pencil drawings that looked like almost invisible
pencil prints on paper. These were unclear drawings that implied something – held
something – leftovers. They had obviously been erased with fingertips and hands –
she had used her body as if it were a giant eraser. The pictures are abstract like a
whisper or a breath, but could as well be a landscape shrouded in mystery, fog.
Harpa´s drawings change and gain a new meaning when exhibited next to “Teikning”.
They no more seem self sufficient in the spirit of l´ art pour l´art, but become a
symbol, an indication or leftovers of something that used to be, but no longer is,
something lost, erased. They aren´t abstract anymore, quite the opposite, at least the
eraser shows them in a new light.
With the work “Teikning” Harpa manifests herself as an idea artist with greater
emphasize on meaning than form. She becomes an artist of intellectual reasoning.
The form still remains important in her work, which is both esthetic and theoretical.
Actually, one can use both terms equally in describing her art. Finally, the eraser
symbolizes artist of all time. It brings all together, the works of the hands, eyes and
mind.
At first glance, the object upon the high pillar by the window appears to be a bar
of soap, but with closer examination one can see it is a big eraser. The title of the
work is “Teikning” or “Drawing”. Harpa Árnadóttir is the artist.
What is turned around here? Are we talking about philosophy? We must at least
take a look . It is always good to look into philosophy. Still, this object is the
portrayal of beautiful simplicity and it doesn't at all look as if it wants to be
anything else.
The eraser looks like a bar of soap. The resemblance becomes clearer when the
usage is taken into account. To wash away dirt. To wash clean. To erase, or turn
into nothing. Yet, the artist did not in the beginning consider the likeness to a bar
of soap. When I met her a year later, she shows me the drawing of the object on
the pillar. Not the same object, just one of the erasers she uses. Of course there is
a connection between the drawing and the eraser. If the latter is used sparingly,
the black led from the drawing will stick to the eraser and become a drawing in
itself, as in this instance. A completely different drawing, to be sure. And why
not exhibit this drawing?
One could also look upon erasing as drawing in reverse; to make, to turn into
nothing or to make it look like noting happened at all. Signs of destruction are left
behind, but then you can also reverse this, as Harpa did in an old monastery when
she participated in an exhibition in Denmark. She told me she had erased a square
from the old walls thereby removing ancient soil. The removal is the sign of what
was left. The soiled walls all around became a drawing. She still has no pictures
of this to show me, so that square meter must simply somehow portray itself in my
own mind. Perhaps “Teikning” is exactly such a work. This was not the eraser
she used to clean the walls of the monastery even though one could easily imagine
so. The soap bar shaped eraser on the high pillar is not very blackened. It
obviously has not been used very much. Then it would also have shrunk. it
appear more to have gotten a little gray with touching, rather than by erasing.
Since this I have seen more of Harpa´s drawings. Diary drawings done in hard
pencil. Abstract, or simply with the intention of creating. At times, almost
invisible, or even totally invisible where I must simply envision them. As she
herself puts it: “It is more important to feel it than to see it.”
Still, I experience her art as straight forward and without affectation. Thinking
brings out the feeling. The outdoor piece that was called Now it is and never more
was created by the amplified ticking of an invisible clock. Exalted? Probably
another drawing, the sign of time. Each tick one dot.
A white exhibit, with a tiny black on the edges upon a soap bar shaped eraser
called Drawing, is really a passionate work. Beneath the clear surface, strong
opposites bubble. Here, in the mind, all kinds of complicated connections are
born. Signs and destruction, things done, undone, and disappearing, how all
deteriorates with time. This exhibits decomposition just like a scull or a burning
candle; That is also a contradiction where the piece of wax solidifies though the
flame grows; or what, where have we now arrived, what are we trying to say or
do? This makes us surprised, and for the moment, that is enough.
The work is humorous as well as magnificent. Something that makes life
worth living and the art worth striving for. (May I place an question-mark here?)
Perhaps it is best to keep thoughts to oneself, not to exclaim out loud, even
though the person holding on to the pen enjoys philosophizing about which comes
first the hen or the egg. At that point it is good to turn back to what is being
discussed; what is physically there, the thing itself. The person writing can also
always press “delete”, or the same button on my old typewriter “Erase”
Mikael Olofsson
Published in the newspaper Göteborgsposten, Gothenburg 2003