ERRÓ

Nationality: Icelandic

Gudmundur Gudmundsson, better known by his pseudonym Erró, was born in 1932 in Ólafsvík, northwest Iceland. After studying at the Reykjavík School of Fine Arts, where he obtained his art teacher's diploma in 1951, he furthered his education in Norway starting in 1952, studying engraving, fresco, and painting at the academy in Oslo. His first solo exhibition took place in 1955 in Florence, at the Galleria Santa Trinità. In 1958, he settled in Paris, becoming a major figure in the Narrative Figuration movement.

Erró draws his inspiration from his numerous travels around the world, collecting a multitude of images: advertisements, news photos, comic strips, posters, and political documents. He selects, assembles, and accumulates them on his canvases with a mix of humor, and at times anxiety or violence, creating works that are meant to be read as much as they are seen. For him, painting is a field of experimentation where "old can be made new." It's a space of personal utopia, the pleasure of contradiction, the joy of being a free spirit, and the delight of provocation. Through his art, he reveals and denounces the aberrations of our society, such as directed consumption, mercantile eroticism, revolutions, and the Americanization of existence.

In several of his compositions, Erró skillfully integrates characters from master paintings by artists like Ingres, Delacroix, Léger, or Picasso. These iconic figures then find themselves cohabiting with movie stars, politicians, or comic book heroes.

He frequently works in series, as evidenced by his Chinese, political, and erotic cycles. Erró explains his method: "I need effective material, and during my travels, I rummage everywhere in book liquidators' shops, in kiosks. I accumulate an enormous amount of material, and when I have gathered many images related to a theme, it's a sign to start a series. The process then consists of selecting the images, 'marrying' them together to make collages, and then paintings."

Recognition for his work is widespread. In June 2001, the Erró Collection of the Reykjavík City Museum was inaugurated at Hafnbarhúsid with a major retrospective. Numerous exhibitions have been dedicated to his work in France and abroad, including significant retrospectives: in 1985 at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, in 1999 at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, in 2005 at the Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma de Mallorca and the Mannheimer Kunstverein (covering the period 1958-2004), and then at the IVAM in Valencia and Alcalá 31 in Madrid in 2006.

1 MOVIE IN DISTRIBUTION

STARS
1967 / 16mm / b&w / silent / single screen / 10' 00 / 40 €
distribution: 16mm