Welcome to a guided tour of the exhibition Valgerður with art theorist Aðalheiður Lilja Guðmundsdóttir, Wednesday 30th of September at 12:15. Aðalheiður wrote about Valgerður Briem’s influential career as an art teacher in the book Myndvit: The Legacy of Valgerður Briem, which was published alongside the exhibition.
Admission is free and everybody welcome!
Aðalheiður Lilja Guðmundsdóttir (b. 1968) is an independent researcher and writer in the field of art theory, philosophy and fine art. In the years 2010–2021, she worked as a lecturer and head of art theory and art history studies at the Fine Arts Department of the Iceland University of the Arts, where she is still teaching art theory courses as well as at the University of Iceland. She has carried out various projects in the fields of art theory and fine art, including research, writing and exhibition making. Her research is in the field of contemporary art, artists’ books and gender studies in the arts. From the year 2024, she is on the board of the Icelandic Art Center. Aðalheiður Lilja studied philosophy at the University of Iceland and philosophy of art at the University of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne.
More about the exhibition:
Valgerður Briem (1914–2002) was an artist, teacher and pioneer in the field of art education. Her life’s work developed through the interplay between her own artistic practice and her teaching, with form, colour, material and visual thinking at its core. Valgerður first exhibited publicly as an artist at the Autumn Exhibition of the Association of Icelandic Artists in 1980, at the age of sixty-six. Behind that moment lay decades of sustained work: drawings, watercolours, wax works, sketches, lettering and patterns. When Valgerður’s family donated approximately 1,640 works on paper to Gerðarsafn in 2006, the true scope of her life’s work became fully visible for the first time.
Gerðarsafn received a two-year research grant from the Icelandic Museum Fund to undertake the first comprehensive study of Valgerður Briem’s life and work, lead by Cecilie Gaihede. The project combines art-historical research into her artistic practice with its presentation through an exhibition and publication, Myndvit – The Legacy of Valgerður comprised of scholarly essays addressing Valgerður’s art, teaching and approach.
