Invasionastas invade Reykjavík

At Kling and Bang gallery on Laugavegur the art collective Invasionistas have invaded the space and the city. Invasionistas is an eight people art collective of all nationalities based in New York. These people are Agathe Snow, Michael Portnoy, Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir aka Shoplifter, Rita Ackerman, Michael Jurewicz, David Adamo, Theodore Fivel and Marianne Vitale. This is the first time this particular line up comes together for a show. During the past 10 years, they have been collaborating in groups of two and more, through performances, installations and video.

The Icelander Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir, better known as Shoplifter was asked to prepare the invasion for the Sequences Festival. Shoplifter is the master and the leader of the art gang and commands the operations from Central in New York City via special live communication channel. With deep superficial vision and entertainment Invasionistas intend to introduce their view on life and love.

Men make faces and moan and clippings from porn magazines decorate the walls in the basement. One piece of the exhibition is drawing more attention than others. That is a video of a man fxxxing a plastic cockroach. Art or nonsense? Or does anyone care? The group shot the video and edited in Reykjavik last week. The video shows the artists run after kids in Öskjuhlíð and boo. One artist licks the toes of a Christ replica made by Bertel Thorvaldssen in Bessastadir. The climax of the video is when the performance artist Michael Portnoy goes on top of the plastic cockroach with a black vagina attached to it. The professed aim of the exhibition is to „twist our common truth." The aim is also to explore the meaning of invasion in general.

Nowadays in art there is not much left to do to shock. Art work with sperm, blood, piss, the Bible and other religious symbols, bodies (both human and animal), genitals and pornography - but it doesn't seem to matter what artist come up with. Few people get worked up over it. Erling Klingenberg one of Kling and Bang curators said, „Yes, it is safe to say that we were concerned when we learned about the cockroach scene and we did what we could to warn children and the light hearted." Klingenberg says so far nobody is shocked by the video. „I'm often surprised by what shocks people. We seem to have gotten very used to pornographic shock elements." Scenes shot at the Church of Bessastaðir, Þingvellir and Geysir were edited out of the video, but the group is making a larger piece out of this invasion.

The Invasionistas exhibition is open at the Kling og Bang Gallery, Laugavegur, until November 5th.