Inside the Icelandic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2019

A mystical world of color, sound, and hair extensions awaits visitors to the Icelandic Pavilion of the 2019 Venice Biennale. The installation is the creation of Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir, a.k.a. Shoplifter, and is titled “Chromo Sapiens,” a reference to the transformative experience the artist hopes visitors will have as they are engulfed by the overwhelming colors. “Chromo Sapiens” occupies a single massive chamber, but the artist has divided the space into three smaller, cave-like chambers using fluctuations in hue. The first chamber, “Primal Opus,” is dark and eerie. Though you sense that you are surrounded by a jungle of furry stalactites, the precise nature of the environment is hidden as the blacks and blues absorb most of the available light. As you venture forward into “Astral Gloria,” the second chamber, the chromatic palette shifts to bright, rich and vibrant reds, yellows, greens and purples. You may at this point feel irresistibly compelled to reach out and touch the work—which is entirely constructed from fake hair extensions. This is encouraged by the artist, who believes in the sensual power of hair and the creative connections it instigates through human touch. Here, there are also accumulations of hair on the floor, inviting you to sit and stay awhile. Finally, you enter “Opium Natura,“the farthest chamber, where you transition into a world of white. As if swallowed by a reverse polar bear, or nestled within a hairy igloo, you can feel your brain chemicals starting to change, calming you, and slowing your heart rate. All the while, you are also inundated with sound, courtesy of a custom audio-scape designed by the Icelandic rock band HAM. The low frequency vibrations of the music awaken something primal in your bones. You feel it in your head and your gut. Appropriately, the band name relates to the Icelandic words hamiur, meaning fur, and hamskipti, meaning to molt or shed. The palpable, visceral experience indeed makes you feel like an animal undergoing a metamorphosis. As you finally exit “Chromo Sapiens,” you may not be entirely sure what you just experienced—all you know is that you feel compelled to go through it again.

Flow It, Show It

Hair. That is what this installation is really all about. Despite the name “Chromo Sapiens,” which directs the attention towards color, hair has always been the real source of inspiration for Arnardóttir. The artist has been working with real and synthetic human hair for more than a decade and a half, in various capacities. She photographed men with ponytails and strung the candid shots together in something called a “Ponytail Panorama;” she paraded women through the streets wearing beard necklaces in the performance piece “Siamese Rapunzels; she bedazzled an orb with silvery braids to create “Hairy Moon.” These various aesthetic experiments all relate to her belief that hair is an essential aspect of human creativity. It is one of the original avenues through which humans learn to express their individuality. It is something that naturally grows out of us, and which continues to replenish itself even after we die. It is soft, yet durable; ancient yet constantly renewed.

Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir / Shoplifter- ChromoSapiens, Installation view. The Icelandic Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia, 2019. Photo: Elisabet Davidsdottir © Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir / Shoplifter

One of the reasons that “Chromo Sapiens” has such undeniable visceral appeal is because it consists entirely of hair. It is like a reverse image of a dream of what it would be like to return to the safety of the womb. We are comforted by the material qualities of this installation, even as its chromatic qualities mess with that sense of comfort. Were it just a series of differently colored chambers, the experience would not be the same. A dark room is not nearly as disquieting as a dark furry room. A rainbow colored room might be intellectually or spiritually transcendent, as anyone who has ever visited a James Turrell installation knows, but a rainbow colored furry room activates our most animalistic senses. A white room is positively sterile; but a white furry room is like a perfect nest.

Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir / Shoplifter- Chromo Sapiens, Installation view. The Icelandic Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia, 2019. Photo: Elisabet Davidsdottir © Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir / Shoplifter

The Low Hum

Another vital aspect of “Chromo Sapiens” is the sound. The low, rumbling hum that follows us through the installation immediately becomes part of the background. Yet, we cannot avoid it, even if we shut our ears and mind to it, because it invades our very flesh, vibrating us from the inside out. We are distracted by the colors that surround us, and the material qualities of the hair, but the sound is essential to the feeling of comfort Arnardóttir has created with the work. It harkens us back to our earliest days, floating in the amniotic fluid of the womb, feeling the constant, calming rumble of a rhythmic heartbeat. The band HAM is often mis-described as a “heavy metal” band. They are more like a band that uses rhythmic, driving forces to create a building sense of energy. In the context of this installation, their music has an almost opposite effect—rather than building towards something, it creates a sense of harmony and balance.

Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir / Shoplifter- Chromo Sapiens, Installation view. The Icelandic Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia, 2019. Photo: Ugo Carmeni © Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir / Shoplifter

Taken together, the three chambers of “Chromo Sapiens,” along with the three elements of color, hair, seem to relate inescapably to the Chinese notion of Sanchin, or the three conflicts: birth, life, and death. We are born into darkness, just as we first enter “Chromo Sapiens” engulfed in shadow and fear. But soon life becomes a sensory explosion, surrounding and inundating us with an almost over-abundance of sights, sounds, and feelings. Some of us stay in that second phase a long time, just as we might take a seat in the second chamber of this installation, beholding the wonder and awesomeness for as long as we can. Finally, inescapably, comes the third conflict—the final phase—the white room. What is most beautiful about “Chromo Sapiens” is how comforting the end is: how peaceful, haunting, and serene it becomes. As the door finally opens and we exit the installation, out into the light, it feels exactly like we are being sent back somewhere we forgot we had ever been, whether we like it or not, to start all over again.

Featured image: Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir / Shoplifter- Chromo Sapiens, Installation view. The Icelandic Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia, 2019. Photo: Ugo Carmeni © Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir / Shoplifter
All images used for illustrative purposes only
By Phillip Barcio