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RÓSKA - IMPACT AND INSPIRATION

June 5 - August 29
Artist and activist Róska was one of a kind. Art smoldered inside her, and the undercurrent of her art practice was personal, avant-garde, and surreal. Róska, whose full name was Ragnhildur Óskarsdóttir, was born in 1940 in Reykjavík. She never balked in her creative process and did not hesitate to express herself on absolutely any subject. Communicating through her art, she contended with new, avant-garde media in the latter half of the 20th century. Her personal and surreal imagery went hand-in-hand with opposition to abstract art and the bourgeois ideology of the time. For Róska the subject of Woman was always central, and she reflected her own psyche and that of women in general in many of her works. In the 1960s and 70s, she was a woman among men in the male-oriented community of artists, and she was unshakeably convinced that women were men‘s equals, and need not conform with the masculine norms of the bourgeois society of the time. Her drawings testify to a delicate narrative style and sincerity; and her campaign posters, paintings, photographs, sculptures, sketches, and performances show that there was so much that mattered to her, whether political or personal issues. For Róska, life and art were indissolubly intertwined.
 
An exhibition of works by Róska opens at the LA Art Museum on 5 June 2021. It will include works from her oeuvre that reflect her creative flow, talent, and avant-gardism, as well as her personal, provocative and sincere approach to her life and art. The intention is to display Róska‘s diverse and unique visual world and her attributes as an artist, activist, and individual; and to shed light on how important her art was, and is, in the context of art history, and the impact she had, and still has, on individuals, society and the era.
 
Róska’s art will be displayed in dialogue with works by contemporary Icelandic artists who reflect Róska‘s unique sensitivity and approach and possess the same energy, enthusiasm, avant-gardism, or sincerity. The common factor of the contemporary artists is that they have in their drawing or approach addressed women‘s psyche in a range of media – media which Róska was unafraid of adopting, although they were avant-garde in the years after the middle of the last century.

GPS points

N63° 59' 46.710" W21° 11' 6.720"

Location

Listasafn Árnesinga, Reykjamörk, Hveragerði