the line

Deceptively simple, the line conforms an imagery that timelessly conveys, carries forward and replicates the patterns constitutive of culture

  • La Casa de la Cultura, Reykjavík
    An epitaph plaque of 1688
  • ¿No es nuestra tarea como humanos
    estar coleccionando grandes momentos?
  • Transformativa. Siempre presente.
    Siempre lista para surgir de nuevo.
  • The Culture House, Reykjavík: a sideboard for a bed,
    Guðlaugur Helgason, 1860
    The ever convoluted and interlaced lines of the Nordic cultures reappearing again and again throughout the millennia.
  • Reykjavík neighbourhood at the back of the old cemetery, September 28, 2016:
    Truly unilinear! the plastic artist and the humanist at their best leaving their humble masterpiece on the lid of a waste bin
  • Dzogchen!:
    Perfect blend of stability and dynamism.
  • The Culture House, Reykjavík
    Benedikt Gröndal Sveinbjarnarson (1826-1907)
    era, entre otras cosas, un calígrafo consumado    .
  • Graffiti artist’s timeless patterns evocative of Benedikt Gröndal Sveinbjarnarson’s (1826-1907) calligraphic decorations eloquently speak of the line joining us all together throughout time and space.
  • The subversive quality of graffiti as a focal point intentionally or inadvertently enhancing comercial venues.
  • Only one-in-a-thousand pretty example of the very fine instinct of integration of the line (colour, shape, vibrancy, location…) in the contextual surrondings developed by graffiters.
  • Novelty: the red graffiti.
  • Novelty: a much more angular display.
  • Museo Nacional de Islandia
    The Valþjófsstaður door, ca. 1200, beleived to have been carved in Iceland, shows a characteristically romanesque style carving with complex interlaced loops.
  • For some reason (perhaps for its amalgamating quality, and the deliberate use of a phisical feature in the wall itself as a focal point that enhances expresivity), this whole-wall graffity reminds me of the fantastic prehistoric murals of the Chauvet cave in southern France.
  • Casa de la Cultura, Reykjavík
    One of the extant manuscript versions of Iceland’s longstanding legal statute book, Jónsbók (ca. 1600, author/artist(s) unknown).
  • The Culture House, Reykjavík
    Another version of the Icelandice legal code Jónsbók.
  • The Culture House, Reykjavík
    One of Bjarni H. Þórarinsson’s ‘Wise Roses’, “vision trees that in the hundreds form special and very Nordic worlds”, created as an attempt to “rebuild an ancient view of the world where words, drawings and symbols collectivelly make a whole” (excepts from the catalog of the Points of View exhibition, p. 55).
  • They continue to love the line, nowadays in more colourfull fashion…
  • Culture is shared or it isn’t
    For at least two are necessary to actually CREATE the aesthetic impression: the skilled practitioner and the predisposed and/or skilled viewer (or, as here, photographer).
  • The Settlement Sagas, temporary collection at The Settlement Exhibition, 2016
    A late 17th century copy of ‘Landnámabók’ (The Book of Land Takings).
    Lines on paper, flowing somewhere between the formalized, more static, and the more fluid, ‘unilinear’ scripts    .
  • Much more than just creativity
    Imagination is free, but the author(s) of this gem display(s) here technical mastery, total domain of their tools and materials, a great deal of experience and tons of passion for their skill/art.
  • I have no idea of what this depiction represents. But if you tell me it was a 15000 years old petroglyph, I would unhesitantly take your word for it.
  • National Museum of Ireland
    The Cross of Cong, from around 1120 AD, with decorative patterns in the Scandinavian Urnes style enduring quite many yers after the end of the Scandinavian settlements on the island.
  • Words fail to express what’s in your eyes right now
  • All media and all canvases are appropriate to today’s ‘liners’. This work goes nearly on the verge of landscape art.
  • Museo Nacional de Islandia
    Another manuscript version of the Icelandice legal code Jónsbók.
  • La línea es también subversiva, y ahí reside parte de su poder.
  • There is the aesthetic bliss of the pristine, sparsely and judiciously applied line, but there is, too, the expressive power of the line saturating the space in a dramatic burst.
  • The Culture House, Reykjavík
    Several bed sideboards dating from the 18th and 19th centuries.
  • National Museum of Ireland
    The Clonmacnoise Crozier, dated 11th century AD.
  • Jón Gunnar Árnason’s Sólfar, the Sun-Craft sculpture
    Some outlines are as old as humanity itself, their trace going back thousands of years, while remaining today just as powerful.
  • Street calligraphy at its best!
  • Street calligraphy at its best of the best!