Smoke Signals: Reykjavik's Contemporary Art Scene is Fire
Originally published in AMA Art Magazine, 2026
Iceland has the lowest per-metre population of any European country, with 389,000 inhabitants occupying 103,000 square kilometres. Two-thirds live in the capital, Reykjavik, the name of which translates loosely as “Smokey bay”. Despite its sparse population — or some say because of it — Iceland has become an unrivalled hub for artistic creativity. More than 90 percent of the population are said to either play in a musical group, make visual art, write or perform on stage. Ten percent have published a book and more than a quarter actually make their living in a creative field.
Since 1970, the fruits of Icelandic creativity have been put on display every other June in the biennial Reykjavik Arts Festival (RAF), which unfolds across scores of venues and includes art exhibitions, operas, symphonies, pop concerts, street performances, readings, talks and basically any type of aesthetic phenomena imaginable. Though primarily a showcase of what Icelandic artists are up to right now, the RAF does also invite a small number of participants from off-island.
“The first festival featured Led Zeppelin with a concert,” says Lára Sóley Jóhannsdóttir, Artistic Director and CEO of the RAF. “[We have] always wanted to support the arts within the country, but also be a window for the people in Iceland to see art from around the world. It is interesting when you go to the theatre to see a play with the actors who work there and are based there, then you see something completely different done within that same hall by people from outside. It is great for your imagination to think about how things can develop further.” Exact attendance numbers are difficult to track, in part because so many RAF events do not charge admission, but Jóhannsdóttir estimates the 2024 edition attracted around 90,000 visitors, mostly Icelanders (nearly a fourth of the population). Aside from attendees, thousands of locals participate in the festival, either as artists or in a supporting capacity. Jóhannsdóttir says every cultural institution also schedules their own programming in an intentional way around the festival. (Institutional highlights during the 2026 festival will include Björk and her mask-making collaborator James Merry taking over the National Gallery of Iceland, and a concert by musician John Grant on closing weekend.) “I was managing director of the national orchestra before joining the festival so I have experienced it from that side as well, Jóhannsdóttir says. You always think about what to program with the festival. The beauty of it is so many people coming together to make something special.” This all sounds extraordinary from an outside perspective. It is rare that any nation hosts a major, recurring festival spotlighting its local talent to the world. For such an event to also welcome some outside performers, just to inspire local artists, is surprising. That a quarter of the population either attends or participates is incredible. That some of the biggest and most renowned creative artists in the world have at one time bee — or currently are — part of it, yet few from outside the country attend or even know about it, is confounding.
Land of many hats
What is it about Iceland that makes it a locus for such intense creativity and such a cheerleader for homegrown arts? Some say it is a side-effect of so few people living in so much space. “It is very normal here to wear many hats,” says Ásdís Þula Þorláksdóttir, owner of Þula gallery, one of Reykjavik’s newest contemporary art venue. “We all tend to do a lot of things that might not be related. Maybe the captain of the national football team is also a dentist.” Jóhannsdóttir agrees. “The population is only 400,000, so everyone has different roles, she says. If you are a musician or an artist you will also be working in a shoppe or teaching. You do different things. All these things can be positive and inspiring to your work.”
That multi-disciplinary ethos has become embedded in all aspects of Icelandic culture, in particular its educational system. “Especially if we talk about the music scene and all the fantastic new music happening in Iceland today, both with classical and pop music, I think the school system plays an important part here, Jóhannsdóttir says. Kids do art, they do music, it is part of the curriculum. They do craft as well. They do cooking. In many other countries that has been cut out. We have to make sure it stays, because all of us need to be prepared to do lots of things ourselves. That feeling of finally becoming independent and being able to do what we want is in our blood.”
Icelandic parents are in agreement with these values according to Þorláksdóttir. “When children decide that they want to go into art, or be a musician or a writer or actor or painter, it is looked at as a career choice and not something outlandish and crazy, she says. We are lucky to have families who encourage their children to take art seriously. The outlook is not like, ‘There goes your life, you are going to be poor forever.’ It is very often met with, ‘Okay, great, are you going to go to the art school?’ People support it 100%. It is something in the culture that is really healthy and beautiful.”
A concrete manifestation of that cultural appreciation is that Iceland University of the Arts is tuition free — students only pay a 75,000 Icelandic Króna processing fee (roughly 400€). The university came together in its contemporary form in 1998 when several smaller Icelandic art schools merged. Icelandic Love Corporation (ILC), one of Iceland’s most experimental and influential contemporary art collectives, met as students at one of those smaller schools, the Icelandic College of Art and Crafts, in the 1990s.
Originally comprised of Jóní Jónsdóttir, Eirún Sigurðardóttir, Sigrún Hrólfsdóttir and Dóra Ísleifsdóttir, today the ILC includes only Jóní and Eirún. Speaking always as a group, not as individuals, they agree there is something unique about how Icelandic supports its artists. “Nobody said ‘no’ to us, or ‘are you sure’, when we were deciding to be an artist. We are both from parents that come from not very high income families, but they were supportive. And the community tries to be supportive — we have artist salaries and grants and things like that.”
The artist salaries the ILC mentions are provided to certain artists by the Icelandic government, and amount to ISK 538,000 (3,635€) per month. “That means that the Icelandic art scene should be made up of people from different directions, different incomes, different cultural capital, says the ILC. But of course, this art business is a strange business. Even with the help and support not everybody can do it. You can be an excellent artist, but there is also this endurance element.”
For many Icelandic artists, the endurance element comes most into play when they take their work international, where commercialism and trends are more important than experimentation and creative freedom. After assisting her father, an Icelandic artist renowned for his experimental approach and his rejection of the traditional art market, Þorláksdóttir was inspired to open Þula gallery to work with more artists. “My father has had his own unique path in his career, Þorláksdóttir says. He has never worked with a gallery. That has allowed him to do whatever the hell he wants. Going from abstract paintings in the 1980s, then working in graphic and abstract, then going into cityscapes then the landscapes that he is now mostly known for — he retains that freedom. He is 70 now. When someone has been working that long you can see their art has developed in the way that, as a person, they have developed. With artist careers, that excites me.”
Þorláksdóttir encourages Icelandic artists she represents to follow the example of her father and retain their freedom as long as possible. “I think this is such a healthy way to develop in your career, she says. It gives an opportunity for world building.” At the same time, if it is what they want, she mentors them how to be successful in the global art market. “As an art dealer I am aware that there need to be some guidelines of how you navigate when you want to succeed internationally. But as a lover of art and a lover of artists, it is exciting to see that artists’ careers can develop in so many different ways.”
“Icelandishness”
Gallery support; government support; educational support; familial support — all of these things contribute to the “Icelandishness” of Iceland’s art scene. And there is one more vital influence — the natural world. “I am sure that plays a role in inspiration, says Jóhannsdóttir. For example in December we get two to three hours of daylight. During the darkness we need to do something. Most people are playing music, going to concerts. We are crazy about Christmas concerts. Everyone needs to see two or three. It can be quite depressing to have it dark all the time, so it is up to us to do creative things until we see the sun again.”
The RAF, meanwhile, is always held in summer, when Iceland has almost 24 hours of daylight. “It is the complete opposite of what we have now, says Jóhannsdóttir. So it is unfortunate, I get presented with all these proposals for beautiful outdoor acts with lots of lighting… and I am like, ‘oh sorry we have no darkness at that time of year’. It leaves out a lot of great things.”
These natural extremes — winter darkness and summer light; constantly changing weather; active volcanoes spewing lava into the sea, making more Iceland — whisper to artists that they should not become too attached to anything, that change is part of life. “A lot of artists have studios with a view over the ocean or the mountains, says Þorláksdóttir. And we all travel the country a lot, so it plays a part in people’s creation in one way or another. People allow themselves to explore without feeling like they are taking a big risk. There is playfulness and freedom in living here and working.”
That sense of playfulness and freedom is also evident in the programming of i8, Reykjavik’s longest running contemporary art gallery. i8 recently celebrated their 30th anniversary and, with such famous artists as Olafur Eliasson on their programme from the beginning, they are no strangers to international attention and market success. Yet, in 2022, when they had the opportunity to open a second outpost, instead of simply opening another commercial gallery, they created a space where individual artists can conceptualise year-long exhibitions that evolve.
“The art world felt like it was only speeding up and we consciously wanted to slow things down,” says Geneva Viralam, one of the gallery’s Directors. “Time is valuable and everyone always wants more of it in life. By offering our artists the chance to have ownership over a single exhibition from January to December that is encouraged to actively change and evolve, it has allowed for a new kind of experimentation and exhibition evolution that is rarely afforded to artists. This also makes a dynamic experience for our visitors, as they can experience one show many times and in many iterations as the year progresses.”
It is hard to imagine such a venture succeeding in other international capitals, where real estate prices are unapproachably high and gallery walls are seen as precious, primarily economic commodities. But in Reykjavik such an unconventional model feels completely normal; a natural outgrowth of a nation and an art scene always in the process of becoming.
