The Forgotten Future - Erro

An exhibition of about one hundred watercolor paintings by Erro which he painted in the years 1981-2004.

There is no mistake that comic strips or books are one of the sources Erró uses for his sleek and sophisticated composition of images, which are often timeless in their appearances so much so that one forgets the long history behind a well-known cartoon character. While past is easily overlooked, so is the future and this is the artist's sentiment when he first entitled the exhibition. Curator Þorbjörg Br. Gunnarsdóttir.

Gudmundur Gudmundsson - who adopted the pseudonym Erró - was born 1932 in Ólafsvík on the northwestern coast of Iceland. He graduated as a teacher in arts from the Fine Art School of Reykjavík in 1951. In the years 1952-1954 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, Norway, where he participated in study trips to Spain and Italy and experienced the art of Hieronymus Bosch among others in museums and exhibitions. In 1954 he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Art in Florence, and the following year he studied at an art college in Ravenna where emphasis was placed on mosaic. Erró decided to settle in Paris in 1958 where his work eventually became known as part of the Narration Figuration Movement.

Erró travels a lot and has been living and working in several places for longer or shorter periods at a time. In the course of his travels around the world he has collected a vast amount of images or clippings from comics, postcards, advertisements, newspapers and all kinds of brochures. This 'collection of images' serves as a source for his works that he makes collages from and later piles up to the canvas at his liking. His canvases are intended to be read as much as viewed.