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VIGGO MORTENSEN

To most people the name Viggo Mortensen is associated with the silver screen, and not least to the role that propelled him to world fame: ARAGORN, the hero in Peter Jackson’s magnificent movie version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. It caught many Danes by surprice that theMuseet for Fotokunst in Odense during the summer of 2003 invited visitors to experience the actor performing as a photographer and visual artist and, on top of that, be confronted with the fact that this role pre-dated his cinematographic career by 20 years.

Mortensen was born in the USA in 1958, has spent much of his childhood accompanying his Danish father and American mother in their agricultural adventures in Latin America. In Venezuela and Argentina he became fluent in Spanish, and he also grew into the brilliant horseman we recognize from many movies. After majoring in Political Science and Spanish from the university, Mortensen settled in Denmark and learned his father’s native language, initially slaving as a dock worker in the port city of Esbjerg, later as a baker probationer at the Steam Mill in Ringsted, and finally ending up in Copenhagen as a waiter in the famous restaurant “Jan Hurtigkarl”.

But the USA was also alluring, and in the beginning the early 1980s, he was admitted to Robertson’s Theatre Workshop in New York where he developed his abilities as a character actor – increasingly his destiny, since his growing fame allowed him to choose among the scripts he found most appealing. Among Viggo Mortensen’s most recent movies are the violent “Eastern Promises” (2007) and the muted and slow western, “Apaloosa” (2008).

The photographer Viggo Mortensen

In one of the many books Viggo Mortensen has published featuring his own photographic work, the American art critic, Kristine McKenna, has perpetrated this fine portrait of Mortensen and his home: “Every inch of his home is given over to artworks, either finished or in progress. There’s art in boxes, in stacks, and leaning against walls, which are hung salon-style with yet more art. […] Mixed in with the photographs, paintings, collages, assemblages, sculpture, and drawings are notebooks filled with poems and short stories, as well as odds and ends the artist has retrieved from the streets. […]The house is like a giant compost pile that provides an inexhaustible supply of mulch, and when you see how Mortensen lives, you begin to understand how he produces so much art; it’s as if he resides inside a paintbox.” [From Viggo Mortensen: “Recent Forgeries”, 1999.]

The same overwhelming confusion may hit you when you watch Mortensen in action with his camera. Usually it is a primitive throwaway camera which even might have been squeezed in a chink of a door in order to let in some false light meant to offer the multitude of motifs a glimpse of anarchy or magic – both are equally important. “Please take the wheel” you are suddenly told, and one moment later, driver Mortensen stands up photographing the passing trees through the hatch of the roof. This is a must: The fundamental rules of photography have to be constantly challenged by new experiments, be it at the expense of sharpness, of time, or the authenticity of colors. The real authentic thing is the piece of art which comes out of it – the picture which delivers a statement or communicates an emotion.

For the Odense-exhibition in 2003, Lonnie Hansen wrote a shrewd article about Viggo Mortensen. The following is her conclusion: Through Mortensen’s lyrical expression, the photos become like small meditations on the world. In his photographs, he seems to be saying: pay attention to your relationship to your fellow humans. Feel the world. Notice the unnoticed. That is what matters. There is the substance. […]He does not prompt our gaze to linger on any individual subject but to glide along among the pictures. He encourages us to make associations and to dream. To daydream. The photographs exhibit intimacy, but do not give away their mystique. This world does not reveal its secrets to our gaze, but opens up an opportunity to quietly be in its presence. [Lonnie Hansen in KATALOG, vol. 15 no. 2].

Usually we type-cast the photographer as the one cutting an ultra-thin slice of the time passing, stealing a lump of the fleeting world, transform it and exploit it – the photographer takes a picture as the expression so precisely states. Unsettled by the meeting with Viggo Mortensen’s playful creations, one could easily feel tempted to argue that he repeatedly he is doing the opposite: He gives us his time slices, presenting us pictures. For the benefit of joy and reflection.

Finn Thrane

(oversættelse: F. T. with help from Hans Albertsen, USA)