Intimacies of the Everyday

The National Gallery of Iceland announces a forthcoming group exhibition entitled Intimacies of the Everyday, featuring more than 60 photographs by renowned international contemporary artists, including Agnieszka Sosnowska, Joakim Eskildsen, Niall McDiarmid, Orri Jónsson, and Sally Mann. The exhibition is curated by Pari Stave, head curator for exhibitions at the National Gallery of Iceland.

The works in Intimacies of the Everyday were selected from discrete series within each artist’s practice and represent decades-long and ongoing preoccupations with photographing the people and places closest to home. The exhibition is organized around the unifying idea that certain images can only be achieved by close, attentive, and sustained observation. The works in the exhibition speak eloquently to the photographers’ intimate familiarity with their subjects and thus the intrinsic tenderness in their approach. In turn, the photographs also reveal the sitters’ willing participation in the artistic process, an implied trust and understanding that at times functions as creative collaboration.

The exhibition will be on view at the museum from January 24 – May 4, 2025. The opening is timed to coincide with the biennial Icelandic Photography Festival, January 18–26, 2025.

The exhibition is sponsored by the American Friends of the National Gallery of Iceland, the Danish Arts Foundation, Ny Carlsberg Foundation, and the US Embassy in Iceland. Agnieszka Sosnowska and Orri Jónsson received funding support from Myndstef.