Slated at between 2.2 and 2.4 billion years old, and sourced from an iron mine in the American Midwest (more precisely the Biwabik formation of Saint Louis County, Minnesota), a single geological specimen—a stromatolite—rests atop a table. This fossilized witness of one of the earliest life forms on earth is installed alongside a number of other objects, together comprising a single artwork by Hreinn Friðfinnsson presented here within the program of EENWERK, Amsterdam, By the Ocean (2018). As a relic of the existence of microorganisms flourishing in shallow water and known to have produced abundant oxygen at their peak in existence some 1.25 billion years ago, the fossil records a process of accretion, its formation unique to specific conditions of growth and the interaction of a life form at the very surface between aquatic and terrestrial environments. This particular stromatolite, a Collinia Undosa dating from the Precambrium era, is a rare red hue due to its high iron content. Set in relation to the stromatolite: a wall-mounted model of an oxygen molecule with a pair of linked atoms; two crystal balls, one on either side of the stromatolite; and a single framed photograph where two boys stand on the shore of a calm seascape beneath an atmosphere heavy with clouds, two spheres of perspective observing the landscape at large. What becomes apparent in any notation of these elements is the reoccurrences, the parallels: spherical pairs, dynamic partnerships, exchanges of energy. By the Ocean borrows its title from the black and white photograph by Thorsteinn Josepsson chosen from the book Icelandic in Pictures (1943). The artist’s selection does not constitute an act of homage, rather a sensitivity to the captured conceptual and cosmic connections inferred. Together, the work’s components sample geography (land, sky, sea, mountains); time; gravity; consciousness; myth; fact. The work of Icelandic artist Hreinn Friðfinnsson draws degrees of separation as potent spaces of communication, of existential exchange, where the attractions and repulsions at play—manifest in the atomic and cosmic nature of the world—formulate the work itself. Perceived as a composite of charged elements read within a conceptual framework By the Ocean grants space for not only thinking about these connections but for feeling them, allowing them to be unspoken and simultaneously known and unknown.

Cassandra Edlefsen Lasch

Curator: Julius Vermeulen