The National Gallery of Iceland has a dual retrospective on covering the careers of Birgir Andrésson ( born 1955) and Steingrímur Eyfjörð (born 1954). It is not that their art is in any obvious way similar or can be said to represent a common approach. The argument for pairing them up is generational. Both artists have pursued highly original investigations but both were at the start active in an art experiment that influenced not only art but also literature, music and fimmaking.

The late-1970s were a very fertile period for what might well be called avant-garde art and literature in Iceland, despite disco and an inexplicable national craze for Americanised country music and decor. Much of the activity centered on an old corner house in Reykjavík, Suðurgata 7. The house was an artist -run exhibition space where several young artists showed their work alongside more established avant-gardists like Magnús Pálsson. The house was also home to several visiting artists from abroad wich included many of the prominent fluxus and performance artists of the time, such as Robert Filiou and Dick Higgins.

Suðurgata 7 was also the editorial office of a magazine, Svart á hvítu, which brought the artists in context with literature, film and free jazz and improvisational music. The group included writers such as Einar Már Guðmundsson, literary types such as Halldór Guðmundsson, long chief editor of Iceland's most established publishing house and now chairman of the Reykjavik Arts Festival, and film-director Friiðrik Friðriksson.

The artists involved in the gallery and magazine included Eggert Pétursson, Steingrímur Eyfjörð, Bjarni H. Þórarinsson, Helgi Þorgils Friðjónsson, Hannes Lárusson, Ívar Valgarðsson, Rúrí, Ingólfur Arnarson, Grétar Reynisson, Ásta Ólafsdóttir, Guðjón B. Ketilsson and Birgir Andrésson, among others. Those familiar with Iceland will recognize the names of a large and apparently disparate group of those Icelandic artists now in mid-career and exhibiting around the world.

The gallery and the magazine have been gone for a quarter of a century ago and the house was moved and now serves as a visitor centre in Reykjavík's outdoor museum, Árbæjarsafn. When it housed the gallery there were no art museums in Reykajvík and few places where young artists could exhibit and few, too, for older avant-gardists and visiting artists from abroad. The little house served them all for a few years and launched more artists on their career than any comparable enterprise in Icelandic history.