Art and Kids

In the typical Icelandic fashion the yesterday’s lovely summer day turned into fuzzy memory while grey clouds yet again invaded the sky. It was still warm in the morning but by the late afternoon the temperature returned to its normal + 9/10 C mark, it started to rain and I felt bad for all those who tried to coop with this drop of the temperature in their bear all tops and short-sleeved T-shirts. If the highest temperature has been only + 15 C, it isn’t summer yet. You can call it this, you can dress as if it is, but it doesn’t make it summer.

The kids today didn’t go to school as they wanted to participate in meeting the Secretary of State. Knowing that such events are usually short I was prepared to compensate my sons' inevitable “That is it?” with walk around the town and visits to their favourite places. The meet and greet did last only about fifteen minutes but the boys had fun time playing with their friends while waiting, and was glad to meet a person to whom they wrote during their American history class last year.

Before going to the embassy the kids asked me to stop at the National Gallery since they haven’t been there for a while. We had about ten minutes to spare, so we did. We saw Monica Bonvicini chain and leather racks and the boys even climbed in one of those things. Then we went to see Finnbogi Pétursson's work. To my delight they were able to recognize his work – they didn’t remember the artist’s name but they were able to link it with Petersson’s work they had seen at a different exhibition. It is nice to know that my bringing them to the museums and galleries have some impact.

After embassy's event we returned to the Gallery to eat and to see the rest of the exhibition. One of the halls had several people waiting to enter so went to see a work of Steina, who is a pioneer of Icelandic video installations art. It was held in a separate hall – dark, with five oversized screens showing five spheres, which constantly change their colours and patterns, while twirling around their axis. "The outer space" sounds accompanied the exhibition. The boys went inside and in a matter of seconds were deep into Star Wars game they invented. The Spheres were the enemies. They ran around in the darkened hall, shooting into spheres and hiding behind the steps, coming up with more and more details of their elaborated play. There were no other visitors in the hall,so I let them enjoy the art in their own way.

I have to admit - it was a perfect setting for Star Wars game.