The President of Iceland, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, presented Árnesingi Art Museum The Icelandic Museum Award 2018 at a ceremony in Bessastaðir today, Tuesday, June 5th at 4 p.m. The Icelandic Museum Award is an award given every other year to an Icelandic museum for outstanding activities.
Three museums were nominated, but along with the Árnesingar Art Museum, Reykjavik Botanical Garden and National Museum of Iceland for a new yearits profit-making and research center nominated for the 2018 Museum Awards.
The Icelandic Section of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the Icelandic Association of Museums and Art Collectors (FÍSOS) are jointly organizing the Icelandic Museum Award, which is a biennial recognition given to an Icelandic museum for outstanding work. As before, the public, institutions and non-governmental organizations were able to submit suggestions for museums or individual projects in the field of museum work that they consider worthy of emulation and the advancement of Icelandic museum work.
The selection committee's report states that the Árnesingi Art Museum offers diverse and ambitious exhibitions that provide good access to the visual art heritage of those it preserves. The museum presents individual artists in solo and group exhibitions and has collaborated with other museums on exhibitions for years. The museum's publications are exemplary, as a high-quality exhibition catalogue is published in connection with each exhibition, which is an important source of information about the museum's work and exhibitions. The museum maintains targeted educational activities where it works with different school levels, artists, scholars and the public. Courses and workshops are held regularly for the public, where there is an opportunity to work with different media in connection with the museum's exhibitions. The Árnesingi Art Museum was at one time the first art museum outside the capital area to be open to the public and has shown itself and proven itself as a powerful and progressive art museum. The selection committee believes that the emphasis on exhibitions that aligns with the main goal of the Árnesingi Art Museum, which is to promote public interest, knowledge and understanding of the visual arts, is exemplary. The museum uses effective methods of education through discussions and events, which demonstrate ambition, professionalism and innovation.
The nominations for the 2018 Museum Awards were announced on International Museum Day on May 18. The selection committee for the 2018 Icelandic Museum Awards consisted of Margrét Sveinbjörnsdóttir, cultural mediator (chair), Rannver H. Hannesson, curatorial director of the National Library of Iceland – University Library, Pétur Sörensson, director of the Icelandic Museums Institute, and Þóra Sigurbjörnsdóttir, project manager of museum assets, the Icelandic Design Museum, who took over from Ólöfa Breiðfjörður, project manager of the Cultural Centers in Kópavogur. The representative of the Skagfjordur Museum of Local History, which received the award in 2016, was Sigríður Sigurðardóttir, former director.
In the photo: Ingibjörg Áskelsdóttir, Secretary of FÍSOS, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, President of Iceland, Inga Jónsdóttir, Director of the Árnesingi Art Museum and Helga Maureen Gylfadóttir, Chair of FÍSOS.