Kristján Gudmundsson | Punktar

Kristján Gudmundsson

Punktar 

Reykjavik, Iceland/Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Silver Press, 1972

12 pp., 18 x 15 cm., softcover

Edition of 300 signed and numbered copies

At an Instant Coffee event years and years ago, curator Christina Ritchie told a story about a Canadian visiting Iceland for the first time. Upon learning where he was from, the cab driver who picked him up from the airport wanted to discuss the merits of Margaret Atwood. The cabbie then asked him what brought him to Iceland, and he sheepishly replied that he had come because of the writings of Halldor Laxness. 

Despite winning the Nobel Peace prize for literature in 1955, the author was pretty obscure at this point (The New Yorker published a story last year titled The Rediscovery of Halldor Laxness). He had become a socialist in America from "watching the starving unemployed in the parks”, alienating many readers and journalists. 

The tourist thought it unlikely that even his seemingly literate cab driver would be aware of him. “I’ll take you to his house,” the driver said. 

This story struck a chord with me as I had just finished reading his epic novel Independent People. It’s a miserable tale of a sheep farmer and his put-upon wife’s battle for survival, and it’s a difficult read. It’s also brilliant. 

For his self-published 1972 artist book, Kristján Gudmundsson photographed and enlarged punctuation from poems by Laxness - three periods. He considered them “enlarged silences”. 

The work reminds me Fiona Banner’s Full Stop drawings: large lead drawings of round and oval shapes, which were later made three dimensional as public art works and this boxed multiple.