Án titils / Untitled follows the exhibition Rolling Line, the opening exhibition of The Living Art Museum in the Marshall House, 18th March – 11th June.

The publication includes a large selection of archive material from Ólafur´s studio, acquired by the museum last year as a gift on behalf of the artist by his family.

The book also includes an introductory text by Halldór Björn Runólfsson, and interviews with Ólafur´s friends and contemporaries, including Hreinn Friðfinnsson, Hildur Hákonardóttir, Kees Visser, Kristján Guðmundsson, Magnús Pálsson, Níels Hafstein, Rúrí, Sigurður Guðmundsson and Þór Vigfússon.

The artist´s own voice also comes through in fragments of interviews taken with Ólafur and closely connected to a chronology following the life of the artist.

This is the first time that a book is published on Ólafur Lárusson´s work.

S7 – Suðurgata >> Árbær (not in service) is a publication based on the cross-disciplinary artist initiative Gallery Suðurgata 7, which ran between 1977-1982. The gallery was organised by young artists at the time who hosted a variety of cultural events; art exhibitions, film screenings, concerts and performances as well as instigating a platform for critical dialogue with the publication and art magazine, Svart á hvítu or Black on White in english.

The project brings together two different institutions, the artist run Living Art Museum and Reykjavik City Museum. The Living Art Museum keeps original documents about the gallery in its Archive of Artist-run Initiatives, while Reykjavík City Museum has preserved the building since 1983, when it was relocated after the gallery ended its operation [see book cover].

The publication is richly illustrated and contains for example an essay by art-theorist Heiðar Kári Rannversson, where he reflects on the gallery in an international context of artist-run spaces, and examines its chronicle using ideas in the art of the 70’s and 80’s in Reykjavík as a starting point.

In 2009 the Living Art Museum initiated the Uppspretta project, which later produced the publication Archive on the Run. Uppspretta was intended to examine the museum’s operations and help shape its future vision following the intense process of registering and evaluating the museum’s collection and position, centred around its 30th anniversary in 2008. The process included work meetings where artists, curators and individuals with ties to the museum, based locally and in the Nordic countries, discussed their thoughts and interpretations relating to Nýló. The result of these meetings was a discussion in four parts hosted by the Iceland Academy of the Arts, which focused on the possibilities of museums and exhibition venues using Nýló as a starting point.

Archive on the Run is intended to be a critical platform from which Nýló’s position and possibilities can be discussed and analysed in diverse ways, stemming from its context and history. The publication contains various ideas, which are based on the following discussion subjects; The challenges of the gift-based collection, the tension between the museum- and exhibition venue, cultural authority and resisting stagnation and finally Nýló as a community.

A Retrospective: the Living Art Museum 1978-2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Living Art Museum in Reykjavík, Iceland

From the start, the Living Art Museum – Nýló, an artist-run initiative, has been a key player in the Icelandic cultural society, and has cultivated its role as a forum for exhibitions and critical discourse by organizing international art events and forming connections with cultural institutions domestically and internationally.

The purpose of this volume is to assemble the museum’s exhibition history, as a source book on contemporary art. Its publication lays open the museum archive and offers insight to those interested in how the museum has presented and run itself through the years. It contains basic information on the museum’s mission and programs, organized primarily to allow for ease and enjoyment in looking up and locating information.

The volume is an important reference guide for all those interested in contemporary art, graphic design, museum and cultural studies.