Conversion 2007–2008, drives the ambivalent message home. It is a triptych that shows a beautiful winter landscape when open but closes to reveal a rubbish dump, framed close and in nauseating detail. This piece was exhibited in the Louvre during Paris Photo in 2006 and attracted much attention. Many interpreted it for
its environmentalist message but if that were its only statement it would we must see it in the context of Sigurðsson’s mission to question our sense of beauty and our understanding of ourselves and our desires. Like the earlier series, Con- version plays on the frisson between the subject and its presentation, and the ambiguity of presenting man made rubbish as being somehow the equivalent of the landscape.

Looking at these images of rubbish we are torn between revulsion and attraction, disgust and desire. the image beautiful. This aspect of Sigurðsson’s art can be expanded into Freudian territory but the artworks do not seem to invite such an interpretation over any other. They are subtle but their effect is immediate and one can then unpack the associations and analyse one’s response at leisure – like the start of an affair when everything is revealed but remains to be enjoyed.

eighth conversion
2006–2008
colour photograph 165 × 110 cm closed
165 × 220 cm
open

seventh conversion
2006–2008
colour photograph 165 × 220 cm open
165 × 110 cm
closed
fold-out

first conversion
2006–2008
colour photograph

closed:
110 × 165 cm
open:
110 × 330 cm