Lecture
Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir: Steina Vašulka & Video Art in Iceland

In the talk for Vasulka Kitchen Brno, Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir will focus on the work and carrier of Steina with an emphasis on her relationship to the Icelandic art scene.

Free entry, the talk will be in English. The event is held on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of The Kitchen in New York. 

The first part of the lecture will review the well-known past of Steina and Woody Vasulka as pioneers of video art in the United-States in the early 1970s’ in relation to Steina’s first exhibition in Iceland in 1984. The second part will explore the reception of Steina’s work in Iceland in the 1990s and her increasing presence within the local art scene. The final part will address the question of Steina’s legacy in relation to the work of other artists, and the foundation of Vasulka Chamber at the National Art Gallery. 

Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir is a professor of art theory at the Iceland University of the Arts, and associate professor of art education at the University of Akureyri. Among exhibitions she has curated are Video art in Iceland from 1975-1990 at Reykjavik Art Museum in (2013), n Digital Dynamics – Art’s New Representation, online on artzine.is (2020) and Haraldur Karlsson’s solo exhibition at Reykjanesbaer Art Museum (2020). Among her publications about video, and digital art are chapters in Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art (2019) and in the upcoming A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1975-2000 (2022). 

Conversation Series: Art’s New Representations: https://www.contemporaryartstavanger.no/conversation-series-arts-new-representations/

Digital Dynamics- Arts New Representations (exhibition and panel discussion): https://artzine.is/digital-dynamics-arts-new-representations/

Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir University of Akureyri: https://www.unak.is/english/moya/ugla/staff/margret-elisabet-olafsdottir