Faster and Slower Lines - From the Collection of Pétur Arason and Ragna Róbertsdóttir

Since ancient times Man draws a line. A line is drawn in the sand, onto skin, onto soft cave walls. The line is marked by a finger, smoke, plants, animal hairs, coals, graphite, ink and blades, for different reasons and attitudes towards the meaning of the action and the drawing itself.

The exhibition „DRAWING - Faster and Slower lines“ takes its title from a work presented in the exhibition by Icelandic artist Kristján Guðmundsson, from 1976. The exhibition explores the extensive element of the drawing through a selection of two- and three dimensional works by fifty Icelandic and international artists. The works all belong to the private art collection of husband and wife Pétur Arason and Ragna Róbertsdóttir, whose collection of contemporary art has grown to over 1.000 works since the early 1960s.

The works in the exhibition can be defined as drawings although many of them expand the definition. They explore the drawing through its core entities and its materials, such as the line, to movement, the connection to the human body, shadows, two- and three dimensional space.

The exhibition aims at casting light on a wide spectrum of drawing in the field of visual art over the past four decades; figurative and abstract subjects, the connection between line, body and space, and transferring of drawing to print- and painting.

The works in the exhibition span the period from 1955 to 2011.