Where the Gallery Has No Walls
Iceland has always attracted artists. The light does things here that it does nowhere else — shifting from Arctic blue to volcanic orange in the space of an hour, dissolving the boundary between sky and land until the whole country feels like a painting in progress. It is no surprise that some of the world’s most ambitious outdoor art has found its home here.
From a geothermal footbath on the Seltjarnarnes Peninsula to a wishing well of light on a small island in Reykjavík harbour, from a giant red chair bolted to a moss-covered rock in the eastern highlands to a concrete sound sculpture you can stand inside and sing — these installations are not decoration. They are conversations between human imagination and one of the most powerful landscapes on earth.
At Ice Paradise Tours, we love building itineraries that make room for the unexpected. These eleven installations are among the most memorable stops we know — and several of them are places most visitors never think to look.
Reykjavík & the Capital Region
01 · Geirfugl (The Great Auk) — Skerjafjörður Bay
By Ólöf Nordal — Iceland’s most prominent outdoor installation artist.
The Great Auk was hunted to extinction in 1844. The last known pair was killed in Iceland for their high commercial value. Ólöf Nordal’s life-sized aluminium sculpture of the bird sits upon a rock in Skerjafjörður Bay, close to Reykjavík’s domestic airport — its body appearing and disappearing with the rhythm of the tide. It is a monument to a species that vanished because it was worth more dead than alive, and one of the most quietly devastating public artworks in Iceland. Go at low tide to see it clearly. Go at high tide to understand what loss looks like.
02 · Kvika — Seltjarnarnes Peninsula
By Ólöf Nordal.
A short walk along the coastal path from Geirfugl, Kvika is a public installation in the form of a geothermal footbath. Visitors are invited to remove their shoes, sit within the bowl of the sculpture, and soak their feet in naturally heated water while gazing across the bay at Mount Esja. It is part artwork, part invitation to slow down — and in Iceland, where geothermal warmth is woven into everyday life, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
03 · Þúfa (Tussock) — Reykjavík Harbour
By Ólöf Nordal.
Continue along the sea-side path from Kvika and you will reach Þúfa — an 8-metre-tall grassy mound constructed from 4,500 tons of gravel and layered with living grass. The word þúfa means tussock in Icelandic, and this is Nordal’s monumental play on the idea: a tiny thing made enormous. At the summit sits a traditional hut once used for making harðfiskur (dried fish) and a sweeping view of the harbour. It is simultaneously a public sculpture, a piece of landscape architecture, and one of the largest artworks ever made in Iceland.
04 · Ásmundarsalur Sculpture Garden — Reykjavík
By Ásmundur Sveinsson.
The building itself is part of the art. Ásmundarsalur was designed in the 1930s by sculptor Ásmundur Sveinsson as his personal studio — a remarkable dome-shaped structure with North African and Mediterranean influences, built in a country that had almost no tradition of stone architecture at the time. Sveinsson used it as a studio, then as an art school where early avant-garde movements in Icelandic art took root. Today it is a non-profit gallery, and the grounds surrounding it are filled with Sveinsson’s bold, mythologically-inspired sculptures.
Viðey Island — A Five-Minute Ferry From Reykjavík
Viðey is a small island in Reykjavík harbour, five minutes by ferry from the city. It is home to one of Iceland’s oldest stone buildings, a restaurant, walking trails — and two of the most significant outdoor artworks in the country. It deserves at least half a day.
05 · Imagine Peace Tower — Viðey Island
By Yoko Ono.
Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace Tower is a wishing well from which a tower of light erupts into the sky — lit every year on 9 October, John Lennon’s birthday, and kept burning through to 8 December, the anniversary of his death. The installation was conceived as a beacon to world peace and dedicated to Lennon, with the words IMAGINE PEACE inscribed on the well in 24 languages. On the nights it is lit, the beam is visible from Reykjavík and can be seen from aircraft. It is one of the most emotionally powerful public artworks in the world, and it belongs on a small island in Iceland.
06 · Áfangar — Viðey Island
By Richard Serra.
American sculptor Richard Serra created Áfangar in 1990 in response to an invitation from the National Gallery of Iceland. The work consists of eighteen basalt columns arranged in pairs around the island’s coastline, their spacing determined entirely by the topography of the land — each pair positioned to frame a specific view across the water. Serra used the island itself as a collaborator. Walking the full circuit of columns is a slow, meditative experience, and one that changes with the light at every hour of the day.
East Iceland
07 · Tvísöngur Sound Sculpture — Seyðisfjörður
By Lukas Kühne.
German artist Lukas Kühne built Tvísöngur on the mountainside above Seyðisfjörður — one of Iceland’s most beautiful and artistically vibrant small towns. The installation consists of five concrete domes of varying sizes, each interconnected and tuned to a specific note corresponding to the Icelandic tradition of five-tone harmony. Stand inside one dome and hum, sing, or speak — the sound wraps around you in a way that feels almost architectural. The installation is always open and just a short walk from the village. It is unlike anything else in Iceland.
08 · Eggin í Gleðivík (The Eggs of Merry Bay) — Djúpivogur
By Sigurður Guðmundsson.
Nine hundred metres from the small harbour town of Djúpivogur, 34 oversized granite egg sculptures are mounted on pedestals along the shoreline — one for each bird species that nests in the area, from the Common Eider to the Little Auk. Each egg is a faithful enlargement of the real species’ egg, produced in granite and marked with a plaque identifying the bird. The result is part natural history installation, part coastal sculpture walk, part quiet celebration of the wildlife that shares this landscape with us. It is one of the most charming and overlooked art experiences in Iceland.
09 · The Giant Red Chair — Between Höfn and Egilsstaðir
Artist unknown — but impossible to miss.
On one of the most remote stretches of the Ring Road between Höfn and Egilsstaðir, a giant red chair is bolted to a rock in the middle of a moss-covered lava field. It is startling, unexplained, and completely at odds with the vast emptiness surrounding it — which is precisely the point. In a landscape this minimal, a single bold object becomes something monumental. It has become a beloved photo stop and a small mystery that every passing traveller quietly enjoys. Keep your eyes open on the left side heading east.
The Westfjords
10 · Samúel Jónsson Art Museum — Sélardalur Valley
By Samúel Jónsson.
Deep in the remote Sélardalur valley in the Westfjords, a farmer named Samúel Jónsson spent the last years of his life building an art museum and a chapel — entirely by himself, entirely from his own imagination, entirely without any formal training. His painted sculptures scatter the grounds in joyful, eccentric abundance. He died in 1969. The municipality now maintains the site, and it has become one of those rare places that feels genuinely discovered rather than visited. It requires effort to reach, and that effort is absolutely worth it.
Honourable Mention
11 · Museum of Einar Jónsson Sculpture Garden — Reykjavík
By Einar Jónsson.
Iceland’s first sculptor, Einar Jónsson, donated his home, studio, and entire body of work to the Icelandic state in 1916 on the condition that it be turned into a public museum. The museum sits on the hill above Hallgrímskirkja church, and behind it — free and open to all — is a sculpture garden filled with Jónsson’s monumental, mythologically-charged bronzes. It is one of the most atmospheric outdoor art spaces in Reykjavík and one that many visitors walk past without realising it is there.
Art That Belongs to the Landscape
What unites these eleven installations is a quality rare in public art: they feel necessary. Not imposed on the landscape, but drawn out of it. The extinct bird that vanishes with the tide. The wishing well of light on the dark island. The singing domes on the mountainside. Each of them could only exist where it is, and each one makes the place where it sits more alive.
At Ice Paradise Tours, we can help you find every one of them — and the ones that aren’t on any list yet. Iceland rewards the curious traveller more than almost anywhere else. Let us help you look.
