Gudjon Bjarnason is an architect and an artist working out of Reykjavik, Iceland and recently Geneva, Switzerland as well as Pondicherry, South-India as the creative director of GB-AAA (Gudjon Bjarnason-Art & Architecture Ateliers). 

Gudjon studied law and philosophy  for a brief time at the University of Iceland. Henceforth, he went abroad and earned undergraduate degrees in architecture and painting (BFA, B.Arch.) from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island; master degrees in painting and sculpture (MFA) from School of Visual Art, New York; and a second professional master degree in architecture, urban studies and building design (M.Sc.Arch. II) from Columbia University, New York. 

As an international artist and architect, Gudjon has held numerous exhibits including recently at the National Academy of Arts, New-Delhi, primarily of his dynamic, systematically exploded steel sculptures and installations often accompanied by his elaborate black and white multi-layered paintings, negative colored digitally altered photographs, books as well as architectural models and imagery. 

A number of articles have been made on his art and design work featured in professional magazines such as Art in America, NU, Sculpture, Inside Out, and Livingetc, and international press media such as The Times of India, Hindustan, The Indian Express, The Hindu, Shillong Times, Morgunbladið and San Antonio Express.  

Documentaries have been made in Iceland, USA and India on his creative accomplishments and he has received numerous grants, recognitions, architectural and art awards including the Japanese Sashakawa grant. 

Gudjon has been engaged, along with exhibits and other artistic and cultural activities, as a leading architect, mostly as the result of competitions in innovative large-scale public projects mainly in India and Iceland. 

He was one of the founders, first instructors and managing director of the Icelandic School of Architecture, Reykjavik.  Furthermore, besides being an occasional speaker at symposiums on his own work, he has been and visiting professor/critic at Rhode Island School of Design, Rhode Island; Verona Technological University, Italy; New Jersey Institute of Technology, New Jersey; Pratt University, Parson School of Design in New York; and, recently at Ion Mincu, University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, Romania. 

 

 

GUDJON
Gudjon Bjarnason -Curriculum Vitae

BFA. B.ARCH., MFA & M.SC.ARCH. ll in Building Design & Urban Planning.

GUDJON (b. Iceland, 1959), the founder and creative director of Gudjon Bjarnason Art & Architecture Ateliers/GB-AAA (India/Iceland/Switzerland), is a sculptor, visual artist, architect/urban planner who lives and works out of Geneva, Reykjavik and Pondicherry, South-India.  

He has been an internationally practicing artist and architect for three decades and held around 30 art and design solo exhibitions, often of his conceptual sculptural/architectural installations whereas he has often utilized explosives for systematic deformations of metals commonly originating from the building industry. 

The pyrotechnical installations have frequently been exhibited along with his stark, graphically complex, black/white/gray tone multi-layered, semi-transparent, semi-automatic paintings/prints, slow motions videos and negative colored photography occasionally along with architectural models and art books in museums, biennales and galleries across the United States, Asia and Europe including the Nordic countries.

After graduating from The Reykjavik Junior Collage (MR), Gudjon studied preliminary law and philosophy for two years at the University of Iceland. 

Henceforth, after global travels and cultural studies, he headed for USA and enrolled in architectural design and painting at The Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, (BFA, B.ARCH.); painting and sculpture at The School of Visual Arts, New York (MFA in Painting & Sculpture); and finally architectural design and city planning at Columbia University, New York (M.SC. ARCH. II in Urban Planning & Building Design) where he graduated in 1990. 

He has taught art and architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design; the USA Institute at the New Jersey Institute of Technology; the Technical University of Verona; Pratt University, Brooklyn; Parsons School of Design, New York;  Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest; as well as The Icelandic School of Architecture (ISARK) where he was one of its original founders, instructors as well as first managing director.  

In October 2011, Gudjon established GB-AAA; a progressive art and architectural atelier under his own name, operating out of Pondicherry and later Reykjavik and Geneva.  Gudjon/GB-AAA has since been engaged in the design of highly creative large scale modern buildings as well as cultural projects/exhibits in various places in India as well as in China, Iceland and the USA. 

Gudjon/GB-AAA was selected as a leading architect as a result of being selected the first place winner in several Indian architectural competitions of national and international importance, e.g. SICPAC-The Shillong International Center for Performance Art and Culture, size 23,500m2, which contains four major auditoriums halls, the National Museum for the Arts, the Shillong Contemporary Art Center as well as an outdoor 20,000 spectator amphitheater. 

According to winning master plan, phase II of the SICPAC cultural complex includes a hotel with a guest house annex, a high-end art and crafts mall with a cineplex, a theater and dance academy and an international residency for artists, designers and musicians.  Gudjon/GB-AAA was also the selected architect for the design of The Ampati Cultural Center, Meghalaya (auditoriums, exhibitions spaces and arts and crafts museum); the Tura Cultural Center (auditoriums and exhibitions spaces and arts and crafts museum); and “The Apple” Ampati International Sports Stadium.  Furthermore, Gudjon/GB-AAA were selected for “The Orange Stadium”, an International multi-sports arena containing a sports museum in Tura, Meghalaya. 

In 2013 Gudjon/GB-AAA was nominated for the best designed fashion store for their Hidesign outlet at the new Hyderabad airport. Additionally, in 2014 he introduced a land art/architectural project for a Buddha memorial and museum in Patna, Bihar, which generated much interest.  He was selected by the Sikh community in Delhi in 2015 to make a proposal for a new progressive secondary school in New Delhi. In 2015 Gudjon was selected concept architect for the 40 acre AB Luxury Resort; a hotel, residential Villas and Spa, located 16 km south of Pondicherry.

In the summer of 2016, Gudjon was selected a finalist for the upcoming Pondicherry Multi-Cultural Municipal Art Center and in the fall same year he was approached to be the concept architect for the innovative SVARAM-Musical Instruments & Research in Auroville, Tamil Nadu. 

Gudjon/ GB-AAA atelier recently conceptualized a series of nine self-sustainable cities at each side of the  river boarder of  Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh states in North-India and a hotel and community development at the Icelandic Thingvellir-UNESCO parliament site. 

In spring 2019, Dino, a “smart“ bus and information stand was selected as a pilot project for India by Nordic Innovation-Nordic Council. Currently, Gudjon is working on the development of Adivasi Center, an educational facility in Dwarka, New Delhi and infrastructure projects in Goa, India as well as residency projects in Nairobi, Kenya and Skagaströnd, Iceland. 

Gudjon sat on the editorial board of the Icelandic magazine “Architecture & Planning” for a decade and has published writings in journals on architecture and art in international design magazines.  

A number of publications have been published and dedicated to Gudjon’s work such as “Minimal Baroque”; two catalogues, “Small Works” and “Large Works” published by the Nordic House in Reykjavik in 1996 at which time Gudjon was selected by it´s board as the “Summer Artist of the Year”. “Contemporary Masters” was published by Art Source Inc., Switzerland; “In The Forbidden Landscape” was published by the Henie Onstad Art Centre, Oslo with its curator, Övind Storm Bjerke, as editor; “EXploding MEaning”, a 237 page art book was published by the Reykjavik Art Museum featuring a main article by its senior editor, Richard Vine and 24 other distinguished writers and poets e.g. Lilly Wei, Dominique Nahas, Nordic prize literary recipient Thor Vilhjálmsson and the international known artist Dennis Oppenheim.  

Furthermore, catalogues on his multi-media works have been published by HP Garcia gallery, New York, with essays by distinguished art critics, e.g. Jay Murphy, Jonathan Goodman and scholars such as the late Thomas McEvilly, chairman of literature and criticism, Yale University, USA.

Gudjon was a partner in the Reykjavik/New York architectural collaborative ABZ- Associates with the architectural firm Arkis/Gudjon Bjarnason/Carlos Zapata with which he has worked in Iceland and New York on theoretical large-scale infrastructure development projects. 

He collaborated, under the name G&B design, with the Stockholm designer Gigja Isis on the design of fashion items utilizing the pictorial graphic world of his multi-layered paintings/politically based photography as a textile iconography.

Symposiums on Gudjon’s art and architecture have been held at Suny Collage, Westchester, NY; The Scandinavian Art Foundation, NY and The Reykjavik Art Museum. He was selected to be the honorary opening speaker as an acclaimed sculptor at SCALE-a gathering of sculptors, an international symposium on sculpture and the environment held in 2012 in San Antonio, Texas at the invitation of National Endowment for the Arts, USA. Gudjon was invited to give a talk at the National Museum of Art in Beijing in 2016, at the India International Center for the Sikh community in 2017. He was also invited to be a speaker at “Republic 2019”, a Smart City convention organized in New Delhi by the World Bank/UNESCO, along with Indian governmental agencies. 

Public documentary films on his explosive art works have been made in Reykjavik by Thorfinnur Gudnason in 2000 (GUDJON) and by Walley films in Texas in 2012 (DySTOPic ProgressiONs). Suyojan Film in New-Delhi made a documentary on his recent art and architectural endeavors in India (GOlden SectiONs).

Gudjon has an upcoming art and architectural travelling exhibit “IslANDs”, launching in Geneva in May 2021 under the curation of Dr. Ásthildur Jónsdóttir, aimed for further display in India, Scandinavia and the USA. In January 2015, he was invited to exhibit a large-scale retrospective of his work at all the main galleries of the prestigious The National Academy of Arts (Lalit Kala), New Delhi , in the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the institution. Gudjon was invited to participate in the CITYX-2021 Venice Architectural Biennale, May 22^nd to November 21^st. 

Three new publications on his recent art and design work are in process to be published in conjunction with his upcoming travelling exhibit “IslANDs”. Contributing writers are the world-known curator and  scenographer Rajeev Sethi who writes a prologue for all the three volumes, senior editor of Art in America Dr. Richard Vine, the acclaimed Indian poet Ashok Vajapeyji, NY architectural critic Iair Rosenkranz, architectural professor Livio G. Dimitru, Romanian poet Doina Urecariu, Italian photographer Sebastian Cortes, Icelandic philosopher Jón Proppé, anthropologist and former chairman of Lalit Kala Dr. K.K. Chakravarti, the Texan artist and Blue Star’s former museum executive director Bill Fitzgibbons, as well as Henry Meyric Huges, presently the Honorary president  of the International Association of Art Critics. Finally, Icelandic curator and art historian Birta Guðjónsdóttir will also contribute an essay.

As an artist, designer and architect, Gudjon has over the years received many grants, awards and recognitions e.g.: Cité Internationale des Arts, France; Italian Ministry of Culture; The Finnish-Icelandic Society; The American Information Service, Iceland; The Icelandic Ministry of Culture; The Icelandic Artists’ Fund; The Sasakawa Foundation, Japan (two times); The Fulbright Foundation, Iceland; The National Research Fund, Iceland; The Scandinavian-American Foundation travel grant, New York; Nordisk Kunstcentrum, Finland; Sleipnir, The Nordic Ministerial Fund, Denmark; SPRON-Cultural Fund, Iceland;  The Municipal Cultural Fund, Iceland; ILS Technological Advance Fund; Margret Björgólfsdottir Cultural Fund; Muggur Travel Fund; Muggur Resident Fund; KÍM-Center For Icelandic Arts project grant; Myndstef project grant (2); The National Endowment for the Arts, USA; Villa Bergshyddan, Sweden;  pioneering innovation grant from Íslandsbanki; Reykjavik Culture grant; Icelandic Foreign Ministry Development grant and Icelandic Art Fund project and publishing grants.

In 2015, Gudjon received an honorable mention for creative achievements from Sumitra Mahajan, the Speaker of Lokh Sabha/Indian Parliament jointly with the Indo-Icelandic Business Association (IIBA), New Delhi. 

In 2019 Gudjon was given the annual Nes Art Center/Skagaströnd municipality’s residency grant for Ahrenshoop, Germany.

He received an honorary two-year artist stipend from the Icelandic government in 1999 and a six months stipend in 2008 as well as in 2010 and one month in 2021 along with several Icelandic State travel grants. He has also received several Icelandic and Italian architectural awards besides his recent awards in India for his interior design, individual buildings and urban planning and architectural nominations such as the Icelandic DV cultural award. 

Articles and interviews on Gudjon’s art, architecture and urban views have appeared in The Times of India, Hindustan, The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Telegraph and Shillong Times as well as numerously in Icelandic newspapers and other media including the State Radio (RUV-2016) and TV (Mannamál, Hringbraut TV-2016). Essays on Gudjon’s work have also been featured in international professional magazines such as Art In America, NU, Sculpture, Inside Out and Livingetc.

He was a cultural advisor in 2013-2015 to INTACH for the cultural and architectural heritage enhancement of the municipality of Pondicherry, India. Gudjon has been four times re-elected on the governing board of The Indo-Icelandic Business Association (IIBA), New-Delhi. 

In 2016 Gudjon was one of the leading founders of the Icelandic-Pondicherry Friendship Society (VIP) where he has acted as a special cultural advisor. As such, he organized with the governing  board the “Icelandic Cultural Festival”, a full two week stretch of cultural events including art exhibits, musical performances, film festival and cultural lectures which launched in Pondicherry in March 2018.

Nordic prize of literature writer, Thor Vilhjálmsson, wrote the poem “To break the Fast” dedicated to Gudjon in 2006 and published by Reykjavik Art Museum. The poem “The Steel Ganesh” is a dedication to Gudjon and his work and part of the book “The Glass House”, a selection of a poems by the distinguished poet, Doina Urecariu, published by the American Library of Congress in 2015. 

Furthermore, a couple anecdotes on Gudjon’s life and persona are to be found in the collection “Forbidden Tales” by Prof. Livio G. Dimitriu, published by the USA Institute, NY and Ion Minchu University, Bucharest in June 2018.  Gudjon’s character appears as a real persona in the otherwise all fictional novel “SoHo Sins” written by Richard Vine and published in New York, 2016 by Hard Crime Books/Titan publishers which soon will be made  into a full feature  Hollywood film directed by Im Sang-soo.