GUNNAR ÖRN GUNNARSSON
(IS)
Gunnar Örn – Poetic Expression and Transnational Significance
From 1996 until his death in 2008, Stalke Gallery maintained a close and ongoing collaboration with the Icelandic artist Gunnar Örn (1946–2008)– one of the most distinctive and influential figures in Nordic art during the latter half of the 20th century. A self-taught artist, Gunnar Örn made a powerful debut on the Icelandic art scene in 1970 with his first exhibition at Ragnar Smári’s Unuhúsin Reykjavík. From that moment, he embarked on a long and highly productive career, continuously experimenting with materials, forms, and subject matter.
His practice embraced painting, sculpture, photography, monotypes, and drawing – often produced in series and driven by a symbolic, existential vocabulary. Early motifs such as the female body, snakes, and male figures later evolved into deeper explorations of myth, nature, and the spiritual dimension of being. His expression merged gestural abstraction with poetic symbolism, situating him in dialogue with European symbolism, Arte Povera, Cobra, and American post-minimalism.
In the 1980s, Gunnar Örn gained international attention. The Guggenheim Museum in New Yorkacquired his major work Stóri draumurinnin 1986 – the same year he represented Iceland at the Venice Biennale. That year, he relocated to the south of Iceland, to Rangárvallasýsla, where his later work moved closer to nature and explored the fusion of man, image, and landscape.
His collaboration with Stalke Gallerybegan in 1996 and continued uninterrupted until his passing. In the late 1990s, Gunnar Örn founded the experimental Gallery Kamburin Reykjavík – an independent exhibition space where, in close partnership with Stalke’s Out of Spacesprojects, he curated an international exchange programmethat brought artists such as Albert Mertz, William Anthony, Lone Mertz, Lawrence Weiner, William Anastasi, and Sam Jedig to Iceland.
Gunnar Örn played a vital role in the artistic development of Sam Jedig, who met him as early as 1974. Their relationship became a long-standing artistic and personal connection that deeply shaped the gallery’s profile and international outlook. Through his collaboration with Elias Hjörleifsson, father of Olafur Eliasson, Gunnar Örn also had an indirect but meaningful influence on a younger generation of artists. This connection was later acknowledged by Olafur Eliasson in his foreword to the major retrospective publication on Gunnar Örn.
Since his passing in 2008, Stalke has continued to present Gunnar Örn’s works in the gallery’s programme, and his practice has also been featured internationally – including by Archim Müller at Art Basel and in Berlin.
Gunnar Örn remained, throughout his life, a fearless and visionary artist – a painter of myth, ritual, and raw expression, who opened new paths between man, nature, and symbol, and who bridged the Icelandic art scene with the global art world. Today, his work holds a central position in the art historical understanding of Nordic transitions from modernism to conceptual and relational practices.
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