Icelandic Phallological Museum - History

History

The museum's founder, Sigurður Hjartarson, is a retired historian. He worked as a teacher and principal for 37 years, finishing at Reykjavík's Hamrahlíd College, where he taught history and Spanish. As a child, he owned a bull's penis (or pizzle) which was given to him to use as a cattle whip. He began collecting penises after a friend heard the story of the bull's penis in 1974 and gave him four new ones, three of which Sigurður gave to friends. Acquaintances at whaling stations began bringing him whale penises as well, and the collection grew from there, expanding through donations and acquisitions from various sources around Iceland. The organs of farm animals came from abattoirs, while fishermen supplied those of seals and the smaller whales. The penises of larger whales came from commercial whaling stations, although this source dried up after the International Whaling Commission implemented a global ban on commercial whaling in 1986. However, Sigurður was able to continue to collect whale penises by harvesting them from the 12–16 whales that fall victim to stranding on the Icelandic coast each year. He also obtained the penis of a polar bear shot by fishermen who found the animal drifting on pack ice off the Westfjords. According to Sigurður, "Collecting penises is like collecting anything. You can never stop, you can never catch up, you can always get a new one, a better one."

The collection was at first housed in Sigurður's office at the college until he retired from his teaching job. He decided, more as a hobby than a job, to put it on public display in Reykjavik and was awarded a grant from the city council of ISK 200,000 to support the opening of a museum in August 1997. By 2003, it was attracting 5,200 visitors a year, of which 4,200 were from abroad. He put the museum up for sale in 2003, but also offered it to the city of Reykjavík as a gift. However, he was unsuccessful in obtaining financial support from the state or city. When he retired in 2004, he could no longer afford the rent on the museum's premises.

After his retirement, he moved along with his collection to Húsavík, a fishing village with a population of about 2,200 people located 298 miles (480 km) northeast of the capital. The museum was housed in a small building, formerly a restaurant, that was marked with a giant wooden penis and a stone phallus standing outside on the street. The village's inhabitants were at first skeptical of the new arrival, but came to accept it when they were persuaded that there was nothing pornographic about the museum.

In 2012 he handed over the collection to his son, Hjörtur Gísli Sigurðsson. It was relocated from Húsavík to Reykjavik's main shopping street at Laugavegur 116. An offer from a wealthy German to buy the museum for ISK 30 million (US $232,000 / €186,000) and a proposal to move it to the United Kingdom were both turned down, as Hjörtur insists that "the museum has to be in Iceland." He intends to continue acquiring new penises because you can "always get a better, newer one ... a bigger size or better shape, you know?"

Sigurður has described the collection as the product of "37 years of collecting penises. Somebody had to do it." According to University of Iceland anthropologist Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson, Icelanders' tolerance of the museum is an indicator of how Icelandic society has changed since the 1990s, when a newly elected neoliberal government fostered a more open outlook on entertainment, creativity and tourism that has "enabled new ideas to emerge publicly". He has documented the significance of the museum's role in Icelandic culture in a forthcoming book, Icelandick: The Phallological Museum and Neo-liberal Politics.