wanted for the future of Romania
The creation of Thorvaldur Thorsteinsson
(artist from Iceland born in 1960 in Akureyri, in present living in Los Angeles)
can be ascribed both to literature (he is the author of numerous books, theater
plays, scripts for radio and television) and visual arts.
As diverse as his writings, the visual work of Thorvaldur Thorsteinsson -
maybe one of the most prolific artists in Iceland - is, despite its multiple
means of expression, a unitary work, sustained by a constant philosophy. The
artist makes himself subtly present, almost unnoticeable, but attracting the
viewer in a game that forces him to become co-author.
Thorsteinsson dislocates and re-contextualizes
fragments of the ordinary, he explores mostly those parts of the daily life
which seem sterile, usually uninteresting for art, and he constantly brings
in the foreground the unpredictable potential of evidence.
At the basis of the video "The Most Real Death" - with one first
variant from 2000 in which 37 Swedish guys are shot, one by one, with imaginary
bullets while they are left alone in a room, and another variant from 2001
(which was presented also in Bucharest at the exhibition "Prophetic Corners
Remix"), a film made in Milan, Italy, in a collaboration with the director
Helena Jonsdóttir, it can be found an ancient game from Iceland. In
this video, alone or grouped after the most accurate laws of composition,
the characters involved simulate they are being shot by a gun-machine. For
a few seconds, the protagonists stand still in a frozen atmosphere, like posing,
and then a short volley of shots seems to cruelly put them to ground. No drop
of blood, no mark to indicate a real wound - the truthfulness of the scene
resides in the actors' play and imagination. For almost half an hour, the
scenes follow each other in the same pattern, but in different frames and
combinations of characters, most of them young.
The viewer quickly notices this is only a game and, no matter how serious
the characters are, the impression of effort firstly created can only turn
into laugh. But, as any joke repeated unceasingly, this comical situation
looses its effect opening a serious perspective in the viewer's consciousness.
The parody of violence easily transforms into violence itself, a mechanical
violence, more dangerous as its senseless game is accepted willingly.
Thorsteinsson brings forward and plays with the mechanisms of media manipulation
in other works too, as this is one of his recurrent issues.
In "Wanted", a project especially
conceived for this year's edition of the "Periferic" Biennial, the
artist took interviews to 13 teenagers from Iasi, aged between 13 and 17 years,
with modest means or coming from families or social milieus with problems,
5 of them even being institutionalised children. Thorsteinsson has organised
the interviews with the attention and care of a proffesionist psychologue,
trying to bring to light the obvious or hidden qualities of the subjects;
then he made a series of posters, designed as to look like the police announcements
and exhibited around the city of Iasi throuhout the Biennial. With the title
"WANTED", the posters presented a photo of the teenager and a text
in which there were mentioned the daily qualities of the character. Every
text had a conclusion saying that the presented adolescent is wanted for the
future of Romania:
"FLORIN (14 years old) is wanted for his great soul, for his powerful
faith and for his special talent. He is an expert in music and, some day,
he could become one of the most popular DJs of his generation, coming to open
his own, highly-classed, discoteque. His unique sense of beauty and his love
for spiritual texts will constantly develop his capacity of creating a positive
climate around him, helping the others to better understand their own life.
Being very orderly and attentive to the smallest details, Florin likes to
solve puzzles and to repair toys, things that he could transform into a private
business in the future. He is mastering the art of enjoying the small things
in life, still succeeding in perceiving it completely. Florin is wanted for
the future of Romania".
The project "Wanted" functioned unexpectadly well in the public
space of Iasi. The passers weren't used to such a display, on the one hand
due to its increased visibility - the artist preffered for places of exhibiting
the posters the most circulated areas in the city, and those "semi-legally"
spots that intensified the visual effect, on the other hand, due to the strong
contradiction between the message and the aspect of the posters, their look
putting the depicted character in a negative light.
The fact that the posters continued to appear throughout the Biennial, on
different routes in the city, conforming to a strategy of gradual presentation,
induced a quest among the public, a quest for a narrative thread which the
artist had subtly settled with the elements of his work. The media manipulation
which Thorsteinsson uses this time has a maieutic goal. His intention is neither
to ironically bat with the future, nor to construct an utopia in the attempt
to dynamically change a relatively amorphous space, but to interpose and metaphorically
propose a state of active expectancy between the way we see the future and
the way we can build it, between a prophetic corner and those who live in
it, between a prophecy and the future itself.
Dan Acostioaei
Visual artist, University assistant at the Faculty of Arts in Iasi, a member
of Vector Association
