ART IS OUR ONLY HOPE!

Katrín Inga Jónsdóttir Hjördísardóttir

2019, digital print signed and numbered by artist

42 x 60cm (not framed)

edition 1/5 + 2 AP.

3 piece 3.000 euro 

1 piece 1.200 euro 

This artwork ART IS OUR ONLY HOPE! was created for solo exhibition in the year 2019 but never exhibited - until now at Reykjavik Art Museum 2021. This photographic works are performance shots of the artist creating (making love with a atar) big wall piece named ALTAR a key piece for the show Art Is Our Only Hope! Dedicated to Carolee Schneemann - especially the photographs taken by the icelandic artist ERRÓ of her performance "Eye Body: 36 Transformative Actions for Camera" (1963) where she was painting with her´s physical brush (naked body).

ART IS OUR ONLY HOPE! is about gives humanity hope through art. Only art can give life meaning. Only art can accept the banality and meaninglessness of existence and defeat it. But what does art want you to do? What can you do for art? 

You can show up for her and embrace the truth. Embrace the truth, and take art into your heart. In the piece ART IS OUR ONLY HOPE! Katrín Inga channels the source of art, the power of creativity and poses the question whether this raw power is enough. Can we by merely believing give meaning to not just art, but to ourselves, our lives and society. Do we need more intermediaries? Philosophers, priests, politicians or pundits? Do we need a new diet, a new theory, a new lifestyle when true art is an option? This seems megalomaniacal, but so does all art. 

When gazing into art you gaze at yourself. By judging it, you yourself are judged. Appreciating it is loving yourself. Art brings us knowledge of self and makes us better and worse at the same time. Art fills us with love and empathy but teaches us mockery, sarcasm and despair at the same time. It does not propose a theory of ethics or aesthetics. She is the creation, the beauty, beyond good and evil.