Although Snorri Ásmundsson has never held office, his political ambitions are not to be sneezed at. Representing his own party, the Left Right Turn, Snorri ran for Mayor of the City of Reykjavík in 2002, losing to the incumbent mayor. Two years later, he made a run for presidency, but well into his campaign he rescinded his candidacy at the urging of his young daughter – “Daddy, don’t be president, just be an artist.” Earlier this year, he announced his candidacy for Chairman of the Independence Party, though in the end nothing became of it. Reports of such events had reached my ears through the arts-world grapevine as acts of satirical performance art, stunts to challenge convention and shake the public’s ideas of what is and is not socially acceptable. But I had to ask Snorri myself to what extent, in undertakings like these, he is being sardonic and to what extent he is being sincere. His answer was clear: in these cases, he told me, “I never, never told myself that I was making art.” That is to say, his political campaigns are as genuine as those of his opponents, only labeled performances by others. (Then again, how many people would say that campaigns by “real” politicians don’t involve theatrical gimmicks?)

Maybe it’s easier for some to think of Snorri’s aspirations for office as “just” the play of an artist, rather than the genuine intentions of an ordinary citizen to effect change. Snorri does not see it as his responsibility to announce when he is or isn’t making art – he leaves it to audiences and the public to decide – so he won’t protest if we consider his political career to be a large-scale performance piece. Regardless, genuineness is often suspect in contemporary art dealing with issues of politics, religion, or other topics one is supposed to avoid in polite conversation. Perhaps it is precisely Snorri’s sincerity, rather than his audacity, in approaching these subjects that has made his (art)work challenging, and especially now, during troubled economic and political times that already make us uncomfortable.

In Snorri’s view of Iceland’s financial collapse, “the kreppa is the best thing that has happened for Iceland and for artists. Opportunities are much more than before. The need for artists is more.” If, in certain cases, the vibrancy of the art scene in Iceland is a proactive upending of the potential toward psychological depression that comes with living on an isolated sub-Arctic island, now that vibrancy is needed even more to counteract the psychological depression that can accompany economic depression.

Snorri affords us the opportunity for inspiration if we choose to accept the genuineness in his work. Next year in Palestine he will reconstruct his Pyramid of Love, a small, clear Plexiglas pyramid under which he has sat and meditated for serenity in public sites, first in Reykjavík as part of Sequences Real-Time Art Festival 2006, then in Venice during the opening days of the Biennale in 2007. He says of this work, “I find that love, peace and happiness is lacking in our society. With this performance I want to send a positive message out to the public.” And with his Video Portrait series, he documents the bare genuineness of others, suggesting that it’s okay (and maybe even more interesting) just to be yourself. The two-minute digitally recorded “snapshots” of individuals facing the camera – not particularly doing anything – strip away narrative and pretense and capture the essence of his subjects in a way that still photography cannot. The series will be presented in October as part of the international experimental film and video festival FishEye Gallery in Rome.

To neglect to mention his sense of humor, though, would be to neglect a large portion of Snorri’s work. His Beauty Camp Weekend at The Living Art Museum this July included extreme makeovers with the assistance of glamorous fashion designers and a lecture on the poor taste and bad manners of Icelanders. His 2003 exhibition For You at Kling & Bang was based on his belief that God must have a good sense of humor, too; it featured large photographs of sky and clouds with prayers inscribed on them – prayers such as, “God, grant people serenity / To accept me as I am, / The courage to live with that, / And the wisdom to buy my art.” As Snorri is known for his bold performances that sometimes push the limits, such as his teddy-bear stabbings (at the Frieze Art Fair in October 2008, he even tore up a bear with a mask of Gordon Brown’s face), he is also able to play off people’s expectations by staying within the bounds of acceptability. At a recent literary reading in Snæfellsnes, for example, he did nothing but that – read – while the whole time the audience was rapt with attention as they anxiously anticipated something unanticipated.

If you’re not in the market to buy but would still like to support Snorri’s art, be sure to check the want ads in Reykjavík Grapevine and papers in France, Germany and Italy in the near future: for a new video work he’s planning, he’s looking for people to lend him some corpses to use as dance partners. And he’s sincere about that.

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List: Icelandic Art News is published by the Center for Icelandic Art, a cooperative project of Iceland's museums and artists' organisations. List is edited by Christian Schoen and Jón Proppé. If you wish not to receive announcements of our new issues - or you want to contact us for any other reason - please send a mail to list@cia.is.