Not rhyme or reason to what I've picked, no special order. And, just like the directors of her film clips she's worked with some amazing photographers. Quotes, like this blog, have a visual bias.
"The reason I do photographs is to help people understand my music, so it's very important that I am the same, emotionally, in the photographs as in the music. Most people's eyes are much better developed than their ears. If they see a certain emotion in the photograph, then they'll understand the music."
Björk, Index Magazine, july 2001
Photographer: David Sims
"It's natural for me to express things first musically, then visually, and third, with words. So the words are like a translation of noises and pictures."
Source
Photographer: Mert Alas + Marcus Piggott
On fashion
A true fashion radical, Björk champions designers like Rei Kawakubo and Sophia Kokosalaki (who made the 'curtain' she wore to the 2004 Olympics). She would never wear jeans and a T-shirt, she says, because they are 'a symbol of white American imperialism, like drinking Coca-Cola'. Her most famous fashion faux pas was wearing a swan outfit to the 2000 Oscars (she claims it was a conceptual joke). Does she ever tire of being eccentric? 'It's like music. So long as it's a form of self-expression, I'm quite into it, but not when it becomes about power status. I do try and wear stuff by unknown designers, and I make sure I pay because if nothing else I have money.'
Source
Photographer: Erez Sabag
On the Swan Dress
At the Oscars five years ago she wore a dress, a costume really, designed by Marjan Pejoski in the shape of a swan, and left eggs all down the red carpet. She wasn't rebelling; she just liked the dress.
"They didn't get it. They actually thought that I was trying to look like Jennifer Aniston but got it wrong." She had in mind a playful, Busby Berkeley look, inspired by his aerial shots of synchronised swimmers, but it didn't quite work out. "I probably wore a more eccentric dress for Cannes [in 2000], but nobody noticed. I think Europeans can stomach things like that more easily. I think Michael Jackson should settle in Switzerland or something. He'd be fine."
Source
"Well, I base a lot of my stuff on nature, and I think there is a lot of repetition in nature, like day and night, day and night, day and night—it’s sort of a rhythm. The seasons are basically the same thing, but just really stretched out. Then again there are certain things that are always the same and others that are always different. All Aprils are different from each other, you know? I think there’s a balance there. I think part of me is very conservative and wants to keep very grounded, and part of that comes from where I come from in Iceland—and also the fact that I am a singer. I mean, I will always have my voice. It doesn’t matter how many fancy new objects I have in the arrangements; it’s always gonna be my voice. That will always show if I am happy or sad, reveal my age and health and so on. It’ll show if I am tired or energetic. All of this...
"The other half is that things change and other things happen, and you bump into new experiences that you could never have anticipated. What I am trying to say is that it’s a fifty-fifty contribution of repetition and brand-new shiny objects that you never even could have fantasized about."
Source
Photographer: Ohashi Jin
"I have seen my records in the “world” section because I’m from Iceland. “World music,” what is that? Everything except the US and Britain? The majority of the planet but kinda second class? Like naïve music? I have had to deal with the elfin naïve nonsense stamp all my life and I have never seen an elf and I don’t think I’m naïve. (If i was from Boston making the same music, I wouldn’t be called naïve.) Anyway, no hard feelings, but I’m just trying to point out how silly those categories are. Music is music."
Source
Photographer: Warren du Preez + Nick Thornton-Jones Vespertine promo shoot
"It took me ages and ages to reason it to myself. I find it very hard to be selfish. I just decided, I'm going to move to London, I'm going to be really selfish, I'm going to get all the instruments I want, all the noises and lyrics I like, and make all the music I can, because everybody's got to express their vision, and no two people are the same. I could happily go and die if I could say, "I did my best, I made my sacrifices." It's as basic as that. If I hadn't done this, I would sit in my rocking chair at eighty-five, with my grandchildren on my lap, and say, "Sorry, I didn't have the guts." I've become selfish now, believe me. I'll go out to the flower shop and buy flowers just for myself. It's outrageous, isn't it?"
Source
Photographer: Juergen Teller
“What happens in Iceland is that you get the blizzard in your face, you have to fight the weather all the time, and you stay very alert, you never fall asleep. Your head is always working. People who go there think the Icelanders are really stressed out. They're not, but their energy is on ten. We've got this awkward thing, which is twenty-four-hour darkness in the winter, and twenty-four-hour daylight in the summer. There is snow from October or November until mid-March. It means that in the winter you're just inside and you write all the books you were going to write and get everything done on your own, and then in the summer you go absolutely mad. Like bears after hibernating.”
Source
Photographer: David LaChappelle
More info: All pics from Bjork.com
Recent Comments