"Now the daring . . .," Grimsson said, about the artists and their art. "Being in our face, giving us an experience that will transform our lives."
Opening
Back in the city center, at the harbor warehouse turned into a contemporary art museum, more than a dozen musicians framed by ivy played the soft tones of a song that sounded like love. Instruments included a harp and cello, xylophone, trumpets, and a computer.
At the center of the room, a long table was laden with stacks of crackers and swirls of licorice. Hans Ulrich Obrist and Olafur Eliasson, curators of an "experiment marathon" that the next day would unite dozens of artists and scientists discussing topics as diverse as sleep patterns, wind currents, and how we laugh, stepped to a small stage.
Later, one artist, Halldór Úlfarsson, would describe the wider world of artistic abstractionists like this:
"It's a kind of think pot where stuff happens. And once in a while, out of that, something grows that people connect with better."
Eliasson told the opening night crowd of several hundred he hoped passersby and curious visitors would use the festival to connect more deeply to experimental installations around Reykjavík.
"We don't see them going out of where they live and into the art. We see them going closer to where they live and into the art," Eliasson said. "The whole idea of the coming together is not necessarily about going away, but about coming home."
First exhibit
Experience inside the cavernous confines of the Reykjavík Art Museum depends on which way you turn.
In one room: white walls and fluorescent bulbs of red, blue, and green.
In another: blown-up photographs of icebergs with structural supports superimposed.
