Over its twenty-nine-year history, i8 Gallery has fostered an influential group of artists from its Reykjavík base. The foundation of i8 Gallery is the conceptual rigour and intellectual spirit of its artists’ practices, which subtly unites the diverse roster. The twenty-three artists of the gallery work in a variety of mediums, including sculpture, painting, drawing, video, textile, installation, and performance.
i8 Gallery, founded in 1995 by Edda Jónsdóttir and her son Börkur Arnarson, draws its name from its original address at Ingólfstræti 8. The gallery moved to its current location near Reykjavík Harbor in 2010, across from the Reykjavík Art Museum. In 2017, the gallery was instrumental in the opening of the Marshall House, a nearby cultural centre located in a renovated factory building from 1948, which is home to Studio Ólafur Elíasson, a satellite studio and experimental space for the artist.
In 2022, i8 established a second gallery space, i8 Grandi, at the Marshall House. i8 Grandi focuses on year-long, single-artist presentations, with an inaugural exhibition by Alicja Kwade, which was followed in 2023 with an exhibition by B. Ingrid Olson and is currently showing a year-long exhibition by the Swedish artist Andreas Eriksson throughout 2024.