Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

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The following vignette from a professional art dealer explains the changes within the visual arts industry over the years: Vignette 4.6.1 The quality is both better and worse I have been in the industry for 50 years (art dealer). The quality is both better and worse, but the quantity is much more. When I originally trained (as a painter) there were 15 graduates from Art School. Out of that 15, 8-9 are still in the fine arts. It was harder then. If you wanted to make a living you had to want it so much. Some of the best Icelandic artists are 50-60 years old. They have changed themselves over the years and kept open to new ideas. Some of the younger graduates are too fixed in their ideas. They say 'It is my style' and that is all they do. They seem to be missing the same openness of the earlier artists. But I think that might be a global problem, not just in Iceland. In Iceland, the arts community is a small community. The cliques run the shows. These cliques are all the same age; have all been through the same education; educated at the same arts school. The broad perspective is missing. I feel so frustrated. What we need are some good critics who know what they are talking about. But everyone knows everyone so no one says what they really think. That means we are missing the critical depth that you get in London and other places. We really need writers who know what they are talking about. The arts school now is missing the point. It is all about ideas. You absolutely need skills. When I was educated, you had to draw and draw. If you can’t read you can’t write a book! The lack of skill down grades the art. The young artists graduating in Reykjavik come with ideas and creativity. Art is like a barometer of the world. A few artists on the tip understand the time and great works happen, then the others follow. Most of the paintings in the gallery sell to Icelandic people. It is interesting, because when it comes to art on the wall, for Icelandic people it must be real. Even poor families have real art on their walls. Even the taxi driver has original art on his walls! We do have other customers from around the world and they tend to be very knowledgeable of Icelandic art. Around 10-15% of work purchased goes overseas, but the rest stays in Iceland. If I was to say what was special about Icelandic art I would say it is the painters interest in the landscape, and its 100
interrelationship with nature and culture. Pioneer work is popular. Icelandic painters lift the environment onto a pedestal. It is a symbol of nationhood and the soul of the place. Yet few young artists work with the landscape. Mostly our successful artists are over 50 years old. Maybe that is because it takes you 10 years to shake the Arts Academy teacher off your back! I went to the graduate show to look for artists to represent, but the work was so bad. Only one artist showed potential. We have wanted to go to the Art Academy and talk about the commercial side of the art industry, but we have never been invited. We used to go to international art fairs and be very successful, but we are an independent gallery and so don’t get grants to do this work. Icelandic paintings generally sell well with average prices around 400,000-600,000 ISK. But then we take a commission and there is tax so the artist gets 57% of sales. Where creative industry courses are available, these are popular, especially when they relate to unique aspects of Icelandic culture such as bespoke adventure travel and fashion and textiles: At the department Rural Tourism in Hólar University College a range of Icelandic specific cultural tourism courses at the Bachelor and Masters level are offered, such as horse tourism and traditional cultural handicrafts. Vignette 4.6.2 The demand for our courses is very strong We made our own curriculum. It includes printing, weaving and fabric design. We currently have 76 students. It is hard for our pupils to find a career pathway in Iceland. Only about 15 students end up in Iceland. The rest find places overseas. Some become textile teachers in Denmark or Spain. We have a few graduates that have gone on to create their own label. One is a jewellery designer for H&M. Others work in London or New York. There are factories in China making Icelandic jewellery. Our textile course includes a lot of fine arts and drawing. This is the basis for everything. Then we cover textile painting; weaving; tapestry; dyeing; pattern making and cutting; embroidery; and mixed media. We have a final exhibition. It is open to the public but students are not allowed to sell their work. We do studio visits whenever possible, but there are not any work placements. We try to get key speakers and industry people into the classes too. We expect the students to visit a gallery at least once a year and write a paper on it. We have done a number of collaborative projects with other arts schools throughout Europe funded from Nordic Council money. The students come to us with very, very different skills levels. So much depends on the quality of the teacher they had in secondary school. The demand for our courses is very strong. We have to turn away about 80-100 students each year. The best thing is that all the lecturers are also practicing artists and this makes it a much stronger course. Most of our staff have masters’ degrees. We make full use of new technologies (and this is evident as you walk around the school) Similarly, tourist initiatives that combine culture with the unique natural features of Iceland appear to be particularly successful. For example: The whale watching industry only began in 1995. We now attract over 40,000 visitors per year. We see our role as education and research as much as tourism. Once again, there is a lack of market research too. We have done some and shown that the travellers are mainly independent travellers (come of their own), but there is a lack of accommodation and that is a problem. We are looking at developing a tourist shop. Last year we tried it and the local craftspeople and handicraft people made things. It was very popular but we ran out of stock. We do an exhibition during the whale festival, but this is not a chance to sell things. Some local performers also perform in restaurants during the whale season. In terms of government policy, grants for the arts are allocated on a regional basis through Cultural Agreements, as the following information shows: Vignette 4.6.3 About Cultural Agreements Cultural Agreements have been signed between 7 areas, covering all of Iceland. The agreements are between the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Ministry of Communications, and between the municipalities comprising these 7 areas. The gist of these agreements is that each area agrees to fund culture and cultural tourism in the area to no less than the agreed amount (matched funding). In turn, the ministries agree to fund each area to a particular amount. For example, the Cultural Agreement was signed with the West Fjords on June 10, 2007 and it will last until Dec. 31 2009. According to the agreement the two ministries agree that state funding to culture and cultural tourism in the area will not fall below the following: 2007: 30 million ISK 2008: 32 “ “ 2009: 33 “ “ The municipalities agree that their total funding for culture and cultural tourism in the area would not fall below: 2007: 85 millions ISK 101
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Arts and Cultural Education in Icel
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Acknowledgements This research woul
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Helga Rut Guðmundsdóttir Helgi Vi
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5.4.2 Talent developement..........
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practices, but in reality there are
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Chapter 1: Introduction and overvie
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school type to which the comment re
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A future study could examine specif
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The number of pupils with a foreign
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pre-primary school teachers were so
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Figure 1.5.3: How useful is the Nat
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The conclusions from this report in
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primary level exceptional students
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‣ Schools and colleges should be
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Increasingly, schools are becoming
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here, it is a good cooperation. We
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In terms of suggested improvements
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There are 300 hundred pupils in thi
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Figure 1.12.2 Accessibility of the
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e active in a range of local profes
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schools have waiting lists of child
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Going to local schools… well we t
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in theatre. The students really lov
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We had a great show. The teachers d
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Page 85 and 86: This vignette from an academic in t
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Page 107 and 108: Vignette 5.2.4 Our selection proces
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