Erró

Biography

Erró, whose birthname is Guðmundur Guðmundsson, was born in 1932 in Iceland and grew up on a farm. He started drawing from a very early age, inspired by the majestic nature surrounding his home. Between 1952 and 1954, he studied Fine arts at the academy in Reykjavik and Oslo. After completing his diploma, he moved to Florence where he developed a fascination with mosaics. In 1958, he moved to Paris where he started exhibiting as early as 1960. Between 1961 and 66, he exhibited at the Salon de Mai in Paris. His international reputation quickly grew, and he started exhibiting in various European institutions, such as the Kunstverein in Karlsruhe in 1969. In 2011, the Schirm Kunsthalle in Frankfurt hosted a solo exhibition. In 2014, he received his first retrospective at the Musée des Arts Contemporains in Lyon.

Errós style can be classified as a mix between Surrealism and Pop Art. The digital world and its impact have long been a source of inspiration for him, as well as the coalescence of art and popular media. He for example, likes to integrate elements of graphic novels and science fiction into his work. Erró's curiosity is unlimited. He visits museums, flea markets, florists and collects everything from articles from foreign language newspapers, to photographs and reproductions of artworks of all kinds. He then uses these in collages, stringing them together in a free chain of associations that Erró compares to the Surrealists' process of automatic writing. Today's society is no longer able to make orderly decisions due to digital oversaturation. This overabundance of visual material can be equated with gluttony. Erró takes up this phenomenon and reflects it in his works. He asks himself to what extent this overstimulation changes our imagination and our view of the world. The supremacy of writing, which has shaped our world for centuries, is being replaced by images. Are we as a society taking a step backwards as a result, are we taking ourselves back to prehistoric times?

In 2011, Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, published a catalogue on Erró.