Núllið new home to the Icelandic Punk Museum
The Living Art Museum would like to wish the new tenants of Núllið, Bankastræti 0, Guðfinnur Sölvi Karlsson, Dr. Gunni, Axel Hallkell Jóhannesson and Þórdís Claessen, administrators of the Icelandic Punk Museum, congratulations with the new space.
The group is now working on the first exhibition that will coincide with the opening of the 2016 Icelandic Airwaves festival. The exhibition intends to trace the history of punk in Iceland and the spirit of the movement through objects and photographs.
According to the foursome the space is not too small and is very well suited to host the exhibition. The museum is a tribute to the punk scene, which has, in their opinion, provided the foundation for the success of Icelandic music.
The Living Art Museum received the keys to the female lavatories at Bankastræti 0 at the year end of 2014 and then began the transformation into an exhibition space in collaboration with the architectural firm kurtogpi. Architect Helgi Sigurðsson designed the lavatories, which were formally opened on the National Holiday, June 17th in 1930. The operations underground were reduced considerably at the turn of the century and the facility was finally closed in the year 2006.
The city of Reykjavík had a large interest in restoring the operations in the space underground, but with a different purpose. The city reached out to the board of the Living Art Museum and invited the museum to take over the space rent-free for a year to install exhibitions underground, with the hope of reviving the space once again.
The lavatories are preserved under the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, which proved to be a considerable challenge for architects Ásmund Hrafn Sturluson and Steinþór Kára Kárason, in working with the preexisting structure, while addressing the new role of the space.
The Living Art Museum´s first exhibition in Núllið opened prior to the completion of the renovations, at Sequences VII Art Festival in April 2015. The construction in the space was completed later during the summer, when the museum´s exhibition programming was continued.
The museum´s exhibitions and events underground were:
Being Boring / Curators Gareth Bell-Jones & Gemma LloydJohn Baldessari, Phil Coy, Lucy Clout, Emma Hart, William Hunt, Sam Porritt and Peter Wächtler
prik/ strik – Kristín Rúnarsdóttir
Nothing Really Matters (except me) Simon Buckley
The apparent impossibility of zero / Ragnar Helgi Ólafsson / Sequences VII
Other events included the opening release of Dulkápan or Hidden Covers on Design March, which occupied the space, offering a varied event programme alongside the exhibition.