Shotgun Review Archive

Elín Hansdóttir

PATH, 2008; installation; dimensions variable. Courtesy of i8 gallery, Reykjavík and Maribel Lopez Gallery, Berlin. Photo: diephotodesigner.de. Elín Hansdóttir's architectural interventions intend to alter our engagement with space and recalibrate optical experience. Her 2008 installation PATH cut off all functional areas of a Berlin gallery, filling it with a frenetic corridor. The gallery door opened directly onto a dimly lit hallway that zigzagged at severe angles while shafts of light--seeming to emanate subconsciously--punctuated the space's shadows. Hansdóttir addressed this and other topics when she recently spoke at Marin's Headlands Center for the Arts, describing how a visitor entered and exited this single pathway through the same door, without ever realizing they turned around. The artist painted a similar corridor blindingly white for a 2005 installation in a rural Icelandic house, thwarting visitors with uneven steps and awkward corners. She recalled that the openness of the venue and the challenge of the structure itself provoked vandalism and aggression from children playing within the space. Wary that her installations can look overly designed, the artist admitted that there was potential for this vandalism to distract from their visual affect. Yet, by testing the space, the children learned its bizarre construction and marked their whereabouts, showing how such surreal visions can motivate the internalization of new systems. In this vein, Hansdóttir's work largely attempts to dissolves a Cartesian notion of perspective and forces the viewer to experience vision outside the apex of the image. Elín Hansdóttir is in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito during Fall 2009.