hat Icelandic sculptor Hulda Hákon loves about a gallery exhibit of her work is mingling with the audience. What she dreads about it is the same thing: endless schmoozing with patrons. "Sometimes that's very tiring," she says.When Hulda began exhibiting her art on the Internet last fall as part of a Web page posted by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland, she discovered a sublime online balance: Through email messages from her audience, she could make a connection -- minus the white wine and small talk. "The Internet provides contact in a very easy manner because you're not confronted with people," says Hulda, who is one of Iceland's most respected young artists. "You don't have to socialize." At the same time, the Internet has exposed her work to a potentially vast new audience. "Some of the people leave remarks on my email: 'I'm here with my girlfriend,' that sort of thing," Hulda says. "It's a nice thing to know that somebody is looking at my art in Australia or America." From her studio in Reykjavik, Hulda says she's beginning to explore in her work the theme of connections, both traditional and electronic -- "how to be nice, politeness, connections to people. I don't know what is going to come out of it."
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