More or Less, Hreinn Friðfinnsson
2010
embossed paper
36 x 36 cm each (diptych) , (43,5 x 43,5 cm framed)
Edition of 30
Hreinn Friðfinnsson’s conceptual work has been characterized as poetic and playful, dealing often with storytelling, nature and time. It can be almost anything: a photograph, a story, a tracing, an atmosphere, a quasi-scientific experiment, a paint stirring stick, secret, a split second up in the air between the years 1975 and 1976, one shoe searching for the other one to form a pair. His works are often structured around dualities and reversals. Both in form and content they are hard to pin down. The works remain in state of flux even after their conception, as he often revisits his older works for reuse or expansion.
Soon after moving to Amsterdam in the 1970s, Friðfinnsson took out an ad in a local art magazine asking people to send him their secrets. The liberating and hesitant collection of privelaged information offered by strangers to Hreinn came to a close after nearly 40 years at Kunstverein in 2015, during his solo exhibition "I collected personal secrets." Hreinns work has always observed the passage of time through the exploraiton of the self, and we've fortunately seen many of these expeditions on the walls of our bienniale Salon Hang.
Born in 1943 in Baer Dölum, Iceland, Hreinn Friðfinnsson lived in Amsterdam from 1971-2024. He has exhibited internationally since the 1970s and had solo exhibitions at respected institutions such as the National Gallery (Reykjavík), the Serpentine Gallery (London) and Bergen Konsthall (Norway). In 2019-2020 a major retrospective "To Catch a Fish with a Song: 1964-Today" took place at KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin and Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva. Amsterdam based venues such as Gallery 845 (1970’s), Galerie van Gelder (1990’s), Kunstverein (2015) and Eenwerk (2018) have hosted solo shows.