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Drawing Apart

Katrín Sigurdardóttir’s exhibition at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, in Cambridge, will consist of two bodies of work both recently completed as part of the commission for this project.

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  • 12 February 2015
  • Cambridge

Katrín Sigurdardóttir’s sculptural practice examines the way physical structures and boundaries affect perception.

Her works gesture towards real locations, employing shifts in scale and fragmentation to systematically question the veracity of memory and history.

Sigurdardóttir’s exhibition at the MIT List Visual Arts Center will consist of two bodies of work – Ellefu and Unbuilt Residences in Reykjavík, 1925-1930 – both recently completed as part of the commission for this project. The works are executed according to an intensive set of processes that hinge on draftsmanship, each with a level of detail that is carefully removed, destroyed, or otherwise obscured.

Top and above: Katrín Sigurdardóttir, Unbuilt 9–Doctor Gunnlaugur Einarsson Residence, Sóleyjargata 5–Architect: Sigurður Guðmundsson, 1926, 2014. C-print Edition of 3 + a/p Courtesy the Artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels

The objects in the series Ellefu (“Eleven” in Icelandic) are abstracted, miniaturized constructions of interior segments of the artist's childhood home in Reykjavík. Sigurdardóttir methodically regenerates crosssections of rooms and passageways based on her on-site surveys of the built structure, which she develops into highly refined technical drawings. These drawings form the basis for constructing the individual works, from prototyping and mold making to casting, joining, and surface polishing. The finished objects are seemingly austere floor-bound sculptures that partially conceal signs of their making, their surfaces rendered without evidence of personal history.

Katrín Sigurdardóttir, Ellefu 4, Stairway, Hallway, 2012. Hydrocal and wood, 46 x 25 x 17 in. Courtesy the Artist

For the series Unbuilt Residences in Reykjavík, 1925-1930, Sigurdardóttir selected a group of unrealized architectural plans of houses from the city’s archives that demonstrate changes in building methods and materials in Iceland during that period. Sigurdardóttir uses these basic architectural plans in a calculated
procedure of redrafting to create models that are then destroyed by various means only to be reconstructed from the remains. The eroded structures evince a history imagined through a process as rehearsed and anticipated as it is left to chance.

Katrín Sigurdardóttir, <i>Unbuilt 8–Carl Olsen Residence, Túngata 14–Architect Einar Erlendsson, 1929</i>, 2014. C-print, Edition of 3 + a/p Courtesy the Artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Katrín Sigurdardóttir, <i>Unbuilt 8–Carl Olsen Residence, Túngata 14–Architect Einar Erlendsson, 1929</i>, 2014. C-print, Edition of 3 + a/p Courtesy the Artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Katrín Sigurdardóttir, <i>Unbuilt 10 – N. Manscher Residence, Garðastræti 37 - Architect: Einar Erlendsson, 1929</i>, 2015. C-print, Edition of 3 + a/p. Courtesy the Artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels
Katrín Sigurdardóttir, <i>Unbuilt 10 – N. Manscher Residence, Garðastræti 37 - Architect: Einar Erlendsson, 1929</i>, 2015. C-print, Edition of 3 + a/p. Courtesy the Artist and Meessen De Clercq, Brussels


February 13 – April 12, 2015
Katrín Sigurdardóttir
Drawing Apart
MIT List Visual Arts Center
20 Ames Street,
Bldg. E15-109 Cambridge

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