Reykjanes Art Museum
15th Anniversary

This year Reykjanes Art Museum celebrates its 15th anniversary. Its formal operation began in April 2003 but it had existed as an idea since 1994 when the three municipalities Keflavík, Njarðvík and Hafnir were united into one and became Reykjanesbær. At that time the „museum‘s“ main task was to keep track of the artworks that belonged to the town. In 2003 a good exhibition hall dedicated to the Art Museum was opened in Duus Museum, a charter was written, staff hired and the museum got financially independent. Thereby the Reykjanes Art Museum became an independent institution and one of three musuems run by the municipality. The operation has since been ever increasing and in 2014 the Reykjanes Art Museum was accredited according to the Museum Act by the Museum Council of Iceland.

Reykjanes Art Museum is the only art museum in the Suðurnes region and therefore plays a specific roll in its cultural life. Its main role is to preserve the artworks the town has acquired, collect new works according to its collection policy, registrate the works and examine their history as well as the aera‘s history of visual arts and also to share that knowledge to locals and others. The total number of artworks is now a little less than 1000 all of which are filed in Sarpur, a collective database for all the Icelandic museums. Part of the artworks is always stored in the museum‘s storeroom, another part is on display in various institutions and schools in Reykjanesbær and yet another part is being shown at the 15th anniversary exhibition in three halls in Duus Museum. The art museum has represented over 300 occurrences during these 15 years, among other things opened 80 big exhibtions in the art exhibition hall in Duus Museum as well as a number of smaller exhibitions in other halls in Duus Museum where 326 artists have been involved either with solo exhibitions or co-exhibitions. The artists are both local and not, Icelanders and foreign. Symposiums, guidances and lectures have been given and numerous school groups have received guidance. The museum has run a summer course for children and conducted a children‘s art festival for 13 years with the participation of all 10 playschools, all 6 elementary schools, both of the town‘s dance schools, the music school and the comprehensive high school. Therefore it can easily be said that the museum has touched almost every single home in the town in one way or the other and thereby lived up to its main role to enrich peoples‘ lives in a positive way.

To mark the 15th anniversary three summer exhibitions will be openend and they will constitue of art works from the museum's collection most of which have come to its possession in the last 15 year. Curator is Inga Þórey Jóhannsdóttir.