Out on the seafront path, east of the old harbour, two bronze figures lean into each other and hold on. They face the water and the long line of Mount Esja on the far side of the bay, and most people walk past them on the way to somewhere else. If you stop, the thing they are doing is plain enough. They are two separate shapes that have decided to stay joined.
The sculpture is a gift, and the story behind it is unusually specific. In 1991 the American ambassador of the day, Charles Cobb, and his wife Sue gave it to the city to mark fifty years since Iceland and the United States first opened formal relations in 1941. The artist was Pétur Bjarnason, and he kept it simple, two people reaching for one another, which is about as clear as a statement of partnership between two countries can be. An identical version stands in Miami, on the other side of the same ocean.
The place it stands gives it a second meaning that the makers could only have half intended. A few hundred metres further along the shore is Höfði, a white timber house on its own patch of lawn, and it was in that house in 1986 that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev sat down at a summit often credited with helping bring the Cold War toward its end. So a sculpture about two nations holding on sits within easy sight of the room where two superpowers tried to do the same thing.
None of this announces itself. There is no grand plaza and no queue, just the path, the wind off the bay, and the two figures going about their embrace while the city walks past. That is part of why it photographs so well. The drama is all in the shapes and the water behind them, and none of it in the staging.
You will find it on the Sæbraut path, part of the run of sculptures along this stretch of coast, close enough to the Sun Voyager and to Höfði that the three of them make an easy and rewarding walk on a clear afternoon. Go when the light is low and the bay is flat, and let the two figures sit against the water.
There are not many better things to send to a person you want to keep close than a photograph of two figures who have decided to hold on. Sign one with a few of your own words, and it carries exactly the thing it was built to say.