Libia Castro & Olafur Olafsson

In Search of Magic – A Proposal for a New Constitution for the Republic of Iceland.
November 26—April 2, 2022.

Gallery Gudmundsdottir proudly presents the exhibition and ongoing project In Search of Magic – A Proposal for a New Constitution for The Republic of Iceland by the Spanish-Icelandic artist duo Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson together with the elastic artist-and-activist collective The Magic Team. For this work the artists received the Icelandic Art Prize 2021.

This exhibition is the latest step in their socially engaged and interventionist art practice, continuing their investigation into the merging of art and activism and experimentation on the magic of art and its agency as a tool for social transformation.The subject is the new Icelandic constitution, written in 2011 in response to the Icelandic public’s demand for a collective moral inventory and advance in Iceland’s decolonization process following the financial crisis in 2008— a project that gained international attention for its innovative and democratic approach. On October 20, 2012, the people of the country voted in agreement of the new constitution in a national referendum. As of today, however, the new constitution has not been ratified by the Icelandic Parliament.

This fact places the Icelandic crowdsourced constitution together with the many other hijacked or in different degrees silenced or oppressed civil processes, like the Arab Spring, the Indignados movement in Spain and the Occupy Wall Street movement in USA. Movements that were all born in response to the global economic and political crisis of 2008 through their commonalities and different genealogies of the people's demands for further democratization, for economic, social and environmental justice and self determination against the imposed and harming global neo-liberal and imperialist politics.

Despite the opposition, people in Iceland have kept fighting for the new constitution and in 2017 Castro & Ólafsson – having in march 2008, in collaboration with composer Karólína Eiríksdóttir, choir, singers and musicians, premiered musical performance Constitution of the Republic of Iceland (and later also a video work of the same title) using the text of the current constitution from 1944 – joined the civil activist group the Constitutional Association in their work of fighting for the new constitution.

In continuation, between 2018 - 2020, the artists, in collaboration with Cycle Music and Art Festival, invited a large group of composers, musicians, artists, civil organizations, activists and members of the public to collectively create a polyphonic composition and performance, In Search of Magic – A Proposal for a New Constitution for The Republic of Iceland, that would musically bring to life all 114 articles of the new proposed Icelandic constitution written in 2011. The Magic Team was created.

The result of that collaboration is presented in the gallery. It’s central piece being a new five-hour video work that captures the polyphonic performance and demonstration. The work is made from professional video recordings and cell phone recordings made by viewers and participants documenting the happening and is interspersed with archival footage from the era of social unrest in Iceland in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash until today. The exhibition is composed of works from their ongoing project starting in 2017, and works that predate it, but inform its foundation and background. Photographs, sketches, videos and drawings documenting the process and their collaborations, from idea to performance, will be on display as well as the monumental text and textile works that were used for it.

Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson have been collaborating since 1997 and their work has been exhibited at the 8th Havana Biennial, Van Abbe Museum, Manifesta 7, the 54th Venice Biennial, CAAC Seville, Kunst-Werke Berlin, 19th Sydney Biennial, Norway's National Gallery and La Casa Invisible, Málaga. They work in Reykjavík, Berlin, Rotterdam and Málaga.

The performance In search of Magic was commissioned by Cycle Music and Art Festival and performed in at the Reykjavík Arts Festival in collaboration with Reykjavík Art Museum. Supported by The Mondriaan Fund, Nordic Culture Point, Nordic Culture Fund, Icelandic Music Fund, Icelandic Art Fund and Myndstef.