The Living Art Museum

This guide to The Living Art Museum in Reykjavik starts with workers tearing up the concrete floor of an old herring plant just to scrub out the smell of fish. You'll hear how the Faxi factory rose in 1948 on Marshall Plan money, earning it the nickname Marshall House, and how twenty-six Icelandic artists founded this museum themselves in 1978 after growing tired of galleries that ignored their generation. It traces the decades of unpaid, hands-on work that kept the collection alive before the building was reopened for art. Look up at the oversized windows and tall ceilings, built for herring silos rather than gallery visitors.