Museum of Small Exhibits (Smámunasafn)

Description:

• With its long and dark winters, Iceland has bred many compulsive hoarders. This oddball museum is essentially a junk collection meticulously sorted and arranged by master carpenter Sverrir Hermannsson (b. 1928). Exhibits include mounted arrays of nails, cocktail napkins, colored tacks, fake teeth, hair elastics, waffle irons, and pencil shavings in unbroken spirals. Responses to the museum's holdings will vary greatly. Some will feel Sverrir has transformed unwanted, everyday objects into a fascinating art of pattern and repetition. Others will see only the neurotic obsessions of a pack rat. A café is on-hand, and up the hill is Saurbæjarkirkja, a typical turf church from 1858.

• © Frommer's 2013

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Recommended 2010