Description:Q5055

The 37 artists in the exhibition produced a series of artist’s book and fanzine, inspired by the “disappearance” theme, expressing a condition suspended between geopolitical reasons and a more private and existential dimension. The works have been designed with an idea of creating a narrative, both visual and textual, capable of recounting different identities, anthropological and cultural, belonging to the territories involved in the network. The exhibition, curated by Halldór Björn Runólfsson, director of the National Gallery of Iceland, Alessandro Castiglioni, Rita Canarezza & Pier Paolo Coro, curators and artists of Little Constellation, maps the great variety found in the expressive approach of artists from the small nations of Europe; nations with less than one million inhabitants, irrespective of geographical situation or territorial size. By producing fanzines and artist’s books for the exhibition the artists pay tribute to a long tradition of unique publications as means of creative communication.

The small nations of Europe are either confined to limited areas encircled by other countries or surrounded by the sea. Their distribution throughout the Continent makes them the perfect guardians of the different aspects of European culture, stretching from the southernmost point in the Mediterranean to the northernmost point in the Atlantic, crossing an axis drawn from the westernmost country to the easternmost island.

Works are exhibited in an installation specifically designed for the central hall of the museum by the Swiss artist Oppy De Bernardo, with the idea of making visible and tangible, through the use of simple construction materials, the size of the network, characteristic of Little Constellation. An integral part of the exhibition is the volume issued by Mousse Publishing, designed as an artist’s book, an anthology of all the work produced for the occasion by artists.

The exhibition forms part of the Reykjavik Arts Festival 2013, Iceland’s first international cultural festival.