A hundred years ago - still in the golden age of the Austrian-Hungarian double monarchy - so in 1906, the International Winter Exhibition at Mucsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest, housed a large-scale Nordic art show. The 310 pieces of the Nordic section, composed of paintings, graphics and sculptures, were the work of Swedish, Danish, Finish and Norwegian artists. 100 years later, Dreamlands Burn is a large-scale exhibition presenting the work of fifty artists and art groups from five Northern European countries. In contrast to the show 1906 Icelandic artists have now been invited by the curators Edit Monár and Lívia Páldi.

Steingrímur Eyfjörd, Iceland’s representative at next years Venice Biennial, is participating, also Finnbogi Pétursson and Ragnar Kjartansson.

The objective of this selection is more an attempt to offer a contemporary reading of the complex artistic reality of Northern Europe with the help of various concepts – nation, identity, statehood, personal versus public, the question of communities, etc –, metaphors and thoughts, and their overlapping or parallel representations. Like the general question raised in the HOMESICK exhibition project earlier this year in Akureyri the curators in Budapest are asking themselves: For what can be called Nordic? What cultural particularities, regional similarities or sameness can we speak of, which, aside from the economic and often conflict-ridden historical relationships that have otherwise linked the Nordic countries, could serve as support for a similar cultural manifestation? Or: what can national or regional representation mean in 2006 in the context of a contemporary Nordic exhibition – what is its relevance and possible strategies? Significant questions of an interesting time.