MARILYN

Installation on United Airlines flight between LA and NY, USA. Gallery Hallsson, 1998

Gallery Hallson was developed by Hlynur Hallson and works thus, that whoever wants to exhibit there needs only to inform Mr. Hallson what and where he would like to hold an exhibit, and the gallerist takes care of the PR. Thorvaldur Thorsteinsson was on a pilgrimage to Hotel del Coronado in San Diego (on the trail of Marilyn Monroe) when he had the idea to send Hallson Gallery a postcard in which he anounced an exhibit devoted to Marilyn Monroe in a particular airplane which he would fly on between Los Angeles and New York.

With the intention of following this through, he bought several postcards of the film goddess at the hotel and stuck them in his jacket pocket. Several days later, when he was taking off this same jacket in the plane, he found the cards, lay them on the seat beside him, remembering nothing about the exhibit. The flight attendant, on the other hand, admired the cards where they lay, and thus strictly speaking the exhibition was held. A fact that completely escaped the mind of the forgetful artist. On arrival in New York he happened to meet a friend who had read about the event in Iceland’s largest newspaper.

Thus the exhibition, which the artist forgot to hold but which happened anyway, proceeded without anyone doing anything.