White Punk

Interview by Line Rosenvinge in connection to the exhibition Places of Worship at The Leisure Club Mogadishni in Copenhagen, 2002

The Icelandic Love Corporation: "We like it when other people have spectacular, sparkling thoughts in their brains, you know, and that they love themselves." The Icelandic Love Corporation came to Copenhagen to do one of their gigs, and Line Rosenvinge met them at The leisure club MOGADISHNI an hour before they performed there.

19:00 - the talk
Talking with the three members of The Icelandic Love Corporation, Sigrún Hrólfsdóttir (1973), Jóní Jónsdóttir (1972), and Eirún Sigurðardóttir (1971).
They answer as if with one voice.

"The Icelandic Love Corporation" has a funny ring to it, but you are very sincere about your believes…
- We are very honest, but at the same time also very ironic, and talking about love is not only about the love between a man and a woman - but about everything. What we do, life. Love of the whole world. It covers everything. And you can expand the concept of love to include hate and misery.

Your kind of love is very spectacular - and it's also pop, plastic and champagne…
- Yes, everything. We try to make life seem spectacular. We want to create a good feeling in people's hearts. At some of our performances we say that everybody is a Higher Being within himself or herself, and that people should completely believe in themselves. We like that other people have spectacular, sparkling thoughts in their brains, you know, and that they love themselves.

So, do you want to arrive somewhere - have a goal. Is that it?
- No, we are just going like bulldozers; we do not have a special goal.  We are just going. Going everywhere.
- Our goal is to spread our thoughts, our philosophy and way of life. The goal is just to work with things. And have fun.

And then there's this expression 'White Punk'?
- Yes! We did most of the pieces for this exhibition in Iceland in December 2001, and we worked like maniacs for a couple of months, and when we finished it was strange to see how it was all very clean and white. When a friend came to see it he said: "even though it looks very white and clean it's still punk". That is where it comes from.

And you take that as a compliment?
- Yes - we liked that thought a lot. It was like a sterilized idea of something completely crazy. We have been doing very many performances, and that involves our personality. With this exhibition we would like to try to take our own person out of things. But still there are a lot of commemorations of our actions here, it's very much us, even when we aren't there.


20:00 - the performance
But here, The Icelandic Love Corporation are in focus for their act. Wearing carnevalesque black hats with long white ribbons, attached to the ceiling with a fine string. Black masks covering faces, playing a melody - or trying to. Touching the space between the three of them, as you do when you try to work out something. Like three muses with each their instrument: xylophone, recorder flute and triangle. All handy instruments, which can be played easily, even by a child.


21:00 - I wonder
Why did it all seem so evident, why were they not silly? Standing face to face with The Icelandic Love Corporation, with their talk about love of the whole world, working hard and having fun - this seems a natural thing. You don't question their 'sweet nothings' because it comes across so charmingly sincere. Genuine, candid. There isn't much of that around these days. Remember when we were pure at heart?