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THE LIVING ART MUSEUM 2009 The Living Art Museum is an artist-run institution, build around the voluntary work of its nearly 300 members. The main foundations of the museum are it’s gift based art collection, an archive of artist run initiatives and performances in Iceland and a research forum for critical events and exhibitions. The program of the Living Art Museum (Nýló) this year will proceed in a similar manner as in 2008, which marked the 30th anniversary of the museum. The main focus has been on revisiting the history of the institution, a thorough processing of its archives and a re-evaluation of the objectives of artist-run initiatives. Throughout 2009, the museum will function as a forum for various critical events and exhibitions that will form a discourse within the institution as well as with the socio-political situation in Iceland. During the first quarter of this year, the process of archiving the museum’s historical documents and re-registration of the museum’s gift-based collection will be completed. In February, Nýló’s archive of letters and printed material found its permanent place at the Reykjavik Municipal Archives, thereby allowing scholars and the general public access to all of the museum’s documents. As a culmination of these projects, a bilingual Icelandic / English publication of Nýló’s exhibition history will be released in autumn 2009, thus made accessible to the public for the first time. Two archives were formally established during the anniversary year: a performance archive and a collection of documentation of artist-run initiatives in Iceland. The research and collecting of materials for these two archives will continue in 2009 and will take place in the exhibition space, made visible to the museum’s guests and open for interaction. Among other projects this year is The Stage, an interdisciplinary research platform. The Stage is envisioned as an opportunity for critical discourse and events, many of which are interdisciplinary and process-based. Among the events is the series Show and Tell, a research project on the history of the independent music scene in Iceland with an emphasis on the 1990s. In March, a series of talks on the roles and responsibilities of theatre and performative arts will take place. The series is titled Gone with the Wind and is organized by The Icelandic Theatre Association. In conjunction, a program of film and video screenings will be held once a month throughout the summer. |
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