Gallerist Q&A - Guðný Guðmundsdóttir

How did you come to enter the art world?

I entered the art world through music. As a classically trained violinist, I was always drawn to interdisciplinary collaboration, especially where sound and visual art intersect. During my years curating music and art festivals, I consistently worked towards bringing contemporary music and visual artists together. Eventually, the visual dimension became central to my work.

Founding the gallery in 2020 felt like a natural evolution, a way to continue engaging with contemporary culture, but from a broader curatorial framework.

If you were to describe the gallery in just three words, what would they be?

Feminine, research-driven, cross-disciplinary.

How does your background as a classically trained violinist and musicologist influence your approach to running a gallery?

Coming from music, I think a lot in terms of composition, rhythm, and structure, how works relate to each other within a space, how different voices emerge in dialogue.

Music also taught me about attentive listening and breathing with others which translates into how I work with artists. I value process, experimentation, and intellectual rigor, and I try to create a platform where artists feel supported in taking conceptual risks.

As an Icelandic commercial gallery operating in Berlin, how does your Icelandic heritage inform the identity and ethos of the gallery?

Iceland has a strong culture of independence and experimentation, and that spirit is at the core of what we do. There’s also a deep relationship to nature and an understanding of small-scale ecosystems—cultural as well as ecological—which informs how I think about time, sustainability, and interconnectedness. The gallery reflects this Nordic sensibility, even while embedded in the international context of Berlin.

How do you balance the gallery’s commercial sustainability with non-market-driven, conceptually rigorous projects?

It’s an ongoing negotiation, but I believe the two can coexist. Many of the artists I work with have research-based or socially engaged practices that aren’t traditionally considered "market-friendly." Still, there’s a growing interest from collectors and institutions in precisely these kinds of narratives—they speak to the complexities of our time.

I try to build a program that is both authentic and ambitious, while cultivating long-term relationships with collectors who understand and value the depth and relevance of what we’re doing.

Can you tell me about your dynamic with the artists you represent—what does collaboration look like in practice, and how do you see your role in that relationship?

It’s a close, ongoing dialogue. I see myself as a collaborator, facilitator, and often—as strange as it may sound—a kind of midwife or doula.

My role is to help bring the artist’s vision into the world, with care, clarity, and attention. That can mean offering curatorial input, supporting institutional strategy, navigating production challenges, or just holding space for the process to unfold. Many of the relationships are long-term and begin with a shared curiosity—or sometimes a political urgency. Ultimately, my goal is to create the conditions where something vital can emerge.

The vast majority of the artists you’ve exhibited so far have been women. Is this a conscious focus, or something that has emerged organically?

It’s a bit of both. I don’t have a quota system, but I do actively seek out underrepresented voices, whose work resonates conceptually and aesthetically. Feminine perspectives, in a broad sense, are at the heart of the gallery’s identity. So, while the number may seem high, to me it simply reflects the world I choose to engage with.

Since the gallery was established in 2020, what would you say has been the greatest challenge so far?

Opening a gallery during a global pandemic was a challenge. But beyond that, navigating the tension between maintaining artistic integrity and surviving within a competitive, commercial ecosystem is a constant balancing act. It takes persistence and flexibility, but also clarity of vision.

Looking ahead, how do you see Gallery Gudmundsdottir’s role evolving—particularly regarding international collaboration and cross-disciplinary dialogue within the Nordic art scene?

I see the gallery increasingly acting as a bridge—between Berlin and the Nordic region, but also between disciplines and different social groups. Collaboration is central to how I work, and I’m particularly interested in projects that bring together visual art, sound, performance, and activism. The Nordic context remains important, not as a boundary but as a lens—a way of seeing that values experimentation, equity, and connection.