Text by Klaus Biesenbach, Alex Ross, Nicola Dibben, Timothy Morton, Sjón.
A celebration of the magical world of Icelandic icon Björk
Björk is a contemporary icon whose contributions to music, video, film, fashion and art have influenced a generation worldwide. Designed by top graphic design agency M/M as a slipcased world of wonders, this publication—which accompanies The Museum of Modern Art's spring 2015 exhibition on Björk—is composed of six parts: four booklets, a paperback and a poster. Each booklet contains illustrated texts by, respectively, curator Klaus Biesenbach, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, British professor of musicology Nicola Dibben and the philosopher Timothy Morton (in conversation with Björk), while the poster features artwork from Björk's albums and singles. The main book focuses on her seven major albums and the personas created for each one. Poetic texts by longtime collaborator, Icelandic poet Sjón, are accompanied by shots of Björk performing live; multiple stills from music videos made by directors including Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Spike Jonze; images of Björk in breathtaking costumes by designers such as Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan; and shots by star photographers such as Nan Goldin, Juergen Teller, Stéphane Sédnaoui, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin and Araki. All combine to form an extraordinary design masterpiece, celebrating the magical world of Björk.
Klaus Biesenbach is the director of MoMA PS1 and chief curator at large at The Musuem of Modern Art, New York.
Alex Ross is an American music critic. He has been on the staff of The New Yorker magazine since 1996. He also authored the books The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007) and Listen to This (2011).
Nicola Dibben is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Sheffield, co-editor of the journal Empirical Musicology Review and former co-ordinating editor of Popular Music.
Timothy Morton is the author of Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World, Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality (New Metaphysics), The Ecological Thought and Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics.
Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson, known as Sjón, is an Icelandic poet, novelist and lyricist. His pen name (meaning "sight") is an abbreviation of his given name (Sigurjón). Sjón frequently collaborates with Bjork and has performed with The Sugarcubes as Johnny Triumph. His works have been translated into more than 35 languages.
Featured image is the cover photo for Biophilia, 2011, featuring a red nebula-style wig by Eugene Souleiman, a dress by Iris van Herpen, and a “harp-belt” in cherry wood and bronze by threeASFOUR. Constellation by M/M (Paris). Photo courtesy Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
W
Diane Solway
Beginning March 8, she takes center stage at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where "Bjork," a retrospective surveys her creative experiments over the past 20 years. The exhibition will feature a new, immersive music-and-film project; trace her seven studio albums, from 1993's Debut to 2011's Biophilia (released in a pioneering album-app format); and include her collaborations with drectors, photographers, and designers like Alexander McQueen.
ArtNet News
David LaGaccia
Björk (Museum of Modern Art, March 24) is a beautiful book, let's get that out of the way; it's uniquely designed, and was thoughtfully laid out in a hard slipcase that any fan or newcomer to the artist would appreciate. It is a strange book, separated into five booklets with musical score-sheets printed on the covers, each cover getting the score of a different song, each cover a different color, and each one helping us understand the many shades of Björk's music, art, and life.
Bookforum
Christopher Lyon
Music fans of a certain age will recall the lost pleasures of album covers, and especially of box sets, which often included liner notes, lyrics, and interviews (and, of course, records). Bjork, the catalogue for MoMA's spring-blockbuster entertainment, recalls this form, with a slipcase containning four booklets and a slim paperbound book with poetic ruminations on the Icelandic star's first seven albums along with images of the David Bowie-like array of her performing personae.
in stock $65.00
Free Shipping
UPS GROUND IN THE CONTINENTAL U.S. FOR CONSUMER ONLINE ORDERS
FROM THE BOOK
“...Björk presents us with a complex mass of dualities and contradictions. What is most impressive about the overall trajectory of her work is that each swerve or seeming detour contributes to a steadily ascending arc.” —Alex Ross
Stéphane Sédnaoui's 1994 portrait of Björk is reproduced from MoMA's extraordinary, slipcased, M/M-designed exhibition catalogue/artist's book, published on the occasion of the museum's highly anticipated Björk exhibition, which opens this week. In one of five enclosed booklets, Björk's correspondence with Timothy Morton, known for his writing on object oriented philosophy and ecology, is published as a back-and-forth stream. He writes, "we’re carving out new hope spaces. sadness, longing, hope, susceptibility, laughter. good ecological recipes. then how about this: between music and words you are allowing the unspeakable to manifest
i like this word unspeakable
it feels ego-puncturing yet beautiful yet weird yet fascinating yet spooky yet physical nonhuman yet human. like bataille’s idea of spirituality
when one feels prana it is like that. the rushing quality and the tendrils climbing up quality and the hairs on one’s body waving like coral quality." continue to blog
FORMAT: Slip, Pbk, 5 vols, 9.5 x 12 in. / 192 pgs / 224 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $65.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $87 ISBN: 9780870709609 PUBLISHER: The Museum of Modern Art, New York AVAILABLE: 3/24/2015 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Text by Klaus Biesenbach, Alex Ross, Nicola Dibben, Timothy Morton, Sjón.
A celebration of the magical world of Icelandic icon Björk
Björk is a contemporary icon whose contributions to music, video, film, fashion and art have influenced a generation worldwide. Designed by top graphic design agency M/M as a slipcased world of wonders, this publication—which accompanies The Museum of Modern Art's spring 2015 exhibition on Björk—is composed of six parts: four booklets, a paperback and a poster. Each booklet contains illustrated texts by, respectively, curator Klaus Biesenbach, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, British professor of musicology Nicola Dibben and the philosopher Timothy Morton (in conversation with Björk), while the poster features artwork from Björk's albums and singles. The main book focuses on her seven major albums and the personas created for each one. Poetic texts by longtime collaborator, Icelandic poet Sjón, are accompanied by shots of Björk performing live; multiple stills from music videos made by directors including Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Spike Jonze; images of Björk in breathtaking costumes by designers such as Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan; and shots by star photographers such as Nan Goldin, Juergen Teller, Stéphane Sédnaoui, Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin and Araki. All combine to form an extraordinary design masterpiece, celebrating the magical world of Björk.
Klaus Biesenbach is the director of MoMA PS1 and chief curator at large at The Musuem of Modern Art, New York.
Alex Ross is an American music critic. He has been on the staff of The New Yorker magazine since 1996. He also authored the books The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007) and Listen to This (2011).
Nicola Dibben is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Sheffield, co-editor of the journal Empirical Musicology Review and former co-ordinating editor of Popular Music.
Timothy Morton is the author of Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World, Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality (New Metaphysics), The Ecological Thought and Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics.
Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson, known as Sjón, is an Icelandic poet, novelist and lyricist. His pen name (meaning "sight") is an abbreviation of his given name (Sigurjón). Sjón frequently collaborates with Bjork and has performed with The Sugarcubes as Johnny Triumph. His works have been translated into more than 35 languages.
