Art historian Halldór Björn Runólfsson has now left the Art Academy after teaching art history there since its beginning five years ago and teaching at its precursor school, the College of Art and Crafts, for many years before that. Instead he has now taken over from Ólafur Kvaran as director of the National Gallery of Iceland, the country's oldest art institution with the most comprehensive collection of Icelandic art. We met with him do discuss his thoughts on the situation in Icelandic arts circles, education and reasearch, as well as to hear about his plans for the museum he will now be heading.

Halldór Björn Runólfsson: Our main challenge with the Academy is resolving the housing situation. There have been several possible solutions, in Reykjavík and outside, but it is also a question of deciding what sort of an institution it should be and what role it should play. If it was only a school we could place it on top a glacier for that matter or in any location, but we see it as much more than that, as an open institution for research, discussions, open lectures, concerts and exhibitions. If it is to be that sort of institution then it will have to be more centrally based and Reykjavík needs a major institution and centre for activity like that. I have always emphasised this in all our meetings with the authorities.

Speaking specifically about art history, we made an important agreement with the University of Iceland. I and Auður Ólafsdóttir, senior lecturer in art history there and curator of the university art collection, were able to coordinate and rechedule all our activities so that we are actually working together on a curriculum where students at the Art Academy and the University come together. This was a major breakthrough as it has boosted the interest in art history and art theory at the uUniversity. We now have an association of students of art history with up to thirty members who are very active. I think this is a marvellous thing in such a small society to bring together in this way people form the Academy and the University and involve them in art oriented activities together.

With the Academy, I think the education of art students has become more concentrated. I have the feeling that the process has accelerated. It used to be – in my generation, for example – that when we got together with artists from other countries, even from the Nordic Countries, we would generally be ten years older than they, considering the stage at which we were in our career. It was a much slower process and I think the Academy has accelerated this process and people are graduating at en earlier age and with more determination to become serious artists and pursue a career in art. Students in the Academy also have the opportunity to go abroad on exchange programmes and this is a very important part of their education. This exchange has also meant that we get a lot of students from abroad who come here to study. The Academy has the highest proportion of foreign students of any university in Iceland. This has been made possible since the school was transformed from the old College into a full-fledged university level institution. But there is still a lot lacking, especially in terms of facilities. There is also still far to much administrative work for the professors and teachers and this has meant that there is little time for research or independent work. Nor have we been able to encourage publication or publish as we have wanted to, books or even journals. This has simply no been possible yet.

There is a lot of activity and the students coming out of the academy are very active and talented. However, I sometimes feel that there is too much energy but that we are lagging behind in developing our own way of doing things. Perhaps I'm showing my age but it sometimes seems to me that there is a lot of energy but that we need to pay more attention to the quality. This has something to do with the economic situation here as Iceland has been developing very fast and there has been a pretty sustained economic upswing. In this way we are a bit like other emerging countries – René Block has been telling me about the tremendous energy in the Balkan countiries and elsewhere and we have seen in recent years a great influx of artists from South America and Asia. We have the same energy as these countries but I wonder if we are as involved intellectually. I have visited a lot of East European contries and the difference I notice is that there you find a lot more dialogue with writers and critics and intellectuals – reviews, articles and journals – which is lacking here.

Christian Schoen: There is a big difference in that the Balcan situation is very political which you don't see here.

HBR: Yes, there is more political engagement which is lacking here. Psycho-social concern is just starting to appear and we have started tackling the issue at the Academy. For a long time, Icelandic art was mostly landscape without any people. Around the middle of the twentieth century there was a period when artists focused on people but then abstraction came along and the social element, people, was dropped again. I have the feeling that Icelandic art has been almost anthropophobic – to use a strong term – compared to other countries. I think this is something that will take us quite a bit of time to overcome.

Jón Proppé: Icelandic art has always tended to a formalist approach – even landscape is a quite formal art.

HBR: Yes, it is. Pretty formal, pretty clean! There is an aversion among artists here to anything that is too narrative or too theoretical. Perhaps it is also that art has not been accepted here as an intellectual pursuit to the same extent as literature, for example.

JP: Now you are taking over as director of the National Galley, which is the oldest art institution in Iceland and has been the focal point for much of the research which has been done on Icelandic art history.

HBR: Well, the same has been true here as at the Academy that the funding and opportunity for research has been lacking to a certain extent. The situation has been improving in many ways. There is more funding now for purchasing art and the museum has been able to offer free admission which has increased attendance. On the research front, the authorites have engaged Ólafur Kvaran, my predecessor in this office, to lead the work on writing a new history of Icelandic art in the twentieth century which is a large and very important project. I also see the National Gallery participating to a larger degree in the educational work on art history which is being done at the Academy and the University of Iceland. The museum has already set up computer access to the collection which is open to the public and soon we will be able to offer this access on the Internet.

CS: Do you see the museum as primarily a place for research and retrospective exhibitions or do you feel there should be a focus on contemporary art?

HBR: I definitely want to have more exhibitions of contemporary Icelandic art, preferably in combination and direct collaboration with international contemporary art and artists. I don't think the National Gallery should be only for older, more established art. At the same time I hope we will be able to follow up every exhibition with more information and more research. To this end we may do longer exhibition in order to have the capacity to do the research for each one and deliver the information. All this, of course, needs to be planned far in advance and the first exhibition which I will have initiated will not be until a year from now.