Travel Pick: Art and Archaeology in Iceland
Facing China from the Arctic Circle

Founded in 1993 and located fewer than 60 miles from the Arctic Circle, the Akureyri Art Museum is one of the youngest art museums in Iceland and the nation’s only institution of its kind outside of the capital of Reykjavik.

Part of the 2008 Reykjavík Arts Festival and curated by Akureyri Art Museum director Hannes Sigurðsson, Facing China features paintings and sculptures by nine prominent contemporary Chinese artists on loan from Dutch collector Fu Ruide. The works featured in the exhibition all include representations of the human figure and were made in the period after 1989 when China experienced unprecedented social and economic changes. The featured artists are Chen Qing Qing, Fang Lijun, Liu Ye, Tang Zhigang, Wei Dong, Yang Shaobin, Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang, and Zhao Nengzhi.