Customer Reviews

SignLanguage

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Viggo Mortensen, although best known as an actor, has been carrying his camera constantly and taking photographs since he was a teenager. His "eye" is unique, finding tiny moments and details in the midst of the busy world and capturing them, often unusually framed or cropped, in ways that are unconventional. People, color and places are photographed in ways that draw you into the pictures, wishing you could ask Mortensen where he was, or what it was that he saw that made him choose to take the picture he took.

Painting is a more recent artistic expression for him, and he has commented that he likes to take works in progress with him on film shoots, working on them in his off-set hours, letting the different colors and places shape what he paints. Images, words and colors are combined in his canvases, often layered, reworked and scratched over.

The collection of photos and painting in SIGNLANGUAGE are primarily from 1999-2001, during which time Mortensen was working in New Zealand during the shoots for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Portraits include some of his costars, landscapes are often from locations throughout New Zealand. Some of the most interesting portraits are from Viggo's favorite ongoing subject: his son Henry. The paintings are most abstract, blending written words, color and shapes.

The images in this collection are full of wonder and color. If you can't catch one of the gallery shows of Mortensen's work, this is an excellent way to share his travels and vision.

The second edition of Signlanguage (ISBN 1-889195-49-9) is out and is available through the publisher's website: I highly recommend it!

I have most of Viggo's books. This is the one you're after if you want the pictures he took while in New Zealand for Lord of the Rings. He has some just beautiful pictures of the cast as well as the country in this one. The ones of Elijah Wood (this is the one where he's in the snow), Karl Urban (I adore this picture. I captures his eyes so well.), & Bernard Hill are the best ones. Having been to NZ, I recognized a lot of the nature shots. They are beautifully done. It also has pictures of Dennis Hopper and several of Viggo's son Henry. It also has quite a bit of his paintings. I recommend this one as well as "Coincidence of Memory". To see what the pictures and paintings look like, I suggest going to viggophile.com and click on "creativity". She has quite a few examples of all his books.

There is much to admire in Viggo Mortenson's latest collection of photographs. "SignLanguage" contains pages of black and white and color photographs which resonate with visual echoes of Henri Cartier-Bresson's, Diane Arbus' and Mary Ellen Mark's work. Like Cartier-Bresson, Mortenson has embarked on a personal quest for photographs that are "decisive moments". Yet unlike Henri Cartier-Bresson, Mortenson is more engaged as a photographer in tune with his immediate surroundings. He demonstrates a genuine interest in personal intimacy and interaction with those he photographs, whether they are strangers in Manhattan and New Zealand urban streets or fellow castmates from the "Lord Of The Rings" movie trilogy. At times his images may seem as voyeuristic as some of Arbus' work, yet they are firmly rooted in the keen interest and passion he shows towards his subjects, which is certainly true of Mary Ellen Mark's finest photography.

Art historian Kevin Power offers an insightful look at Viggo Mortenson's art and the photographer at work. He draws interesting parallels between Mortenson's recent work and the fantasy literature of Tolkien and Le Guin. Yet I think another interesting parallel is to William Gibson's cyberpunk literature, especially the "cultural anthropologist" Yamazuki featured in Gibson's recent novels. In his own way, Mortenson is as insatiably curious about his surroundings as Yamazuki. Without question, Viggo Mortenson is a fine photographer as well as an excellent actor.

This is a fascinating book of photography. I am reminded of how Paul Gaugin would let the primary images of his paintings run off of the canvas, which gives a sense of immediacy and action. I also really enjoyed the poetically written text by Kevin Power. I am a poet and understand Viggo Mortensen is one as well, and I really enjoyed the descriptions of his use of and relationship to language in his art. I only wish there were some actual examples of his poetry, but since that wasn't his focus, it's only my own expectation and disappointment. The images are captivating. I very much recommend it!

You know him best for his striding around Middle-Earth in grimy clothes, beheading orcs left and right. But talented actor Viggo Mortensen is a man of many gifts -- poetry, photography, painting and music among them. "SignLanguage" is a unique blend of his art and what he captures on film.

In "SignLanguage," he demonstrates his ability to take the ordinary -- bicycles, ferns, flowerpots, a dead fish and a baby's chubby legs -- and give it a mysterious, ethereal spin. Some are more posed, like "Te Anu," a shot of costar Elijah Wood sitting in the snow. Others are more intimate like "Fell," a haunting collage of light, shadow and leaves. You can sit and stare at that one all day.

Several photographs are from Mortensen's time in New Zealand shooting the fantasy epic "The Lord of the Rings." As a result, there are shots of New Zealand's beautiful scenery, such as a haunting shot of misty forests as pretty and ominous as anything in the films. Additionally, there are some pictures of Mortensen's castmates. These moments are captured with surprising delicacy, as if Mortensen has cropped away the outside world and just left in the images he wants his readers to see.

And peppered in with the photos are paintings: The layered, deceptively simple-looking "Sun Losing Its Yellow," the haunting, darker "Element of Surprise." Kevin Power's thought-provoking, intelligent essay on Mortensen's work is, if not a good summary, then a good springboard into the work itself. Certainly reading it puts you in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate Mortensen's work.

The meditative, capture-the-moment quality of Mortensen's work is one that is rare to find in any kind of art. And "SignLanguage" proves yet again that when it comes to Viggo Mortensen, still waters run deep.

Mortensen again choses to illustrate intentionally provocative "capture the moment" photos in his work SignLanguage. The layered multimedia works in this book reflect the increasing depth of this author's life experiences and are among the best pieces in the work. The stylistic underpinnings of his more recent work, Miyelo, are evident in the portraits of this book -- he has a gift for grasping emotion with his focus on a subject's eyes. A good work, but not his best.

Waited anxiously to receive this book, and was not disappointed.
Viggo is a incredibly talented artist! My only complaint is that photos of his paintings do not do them justice-I hope I can see them in a gallery setting soon! I look forward to the publishing of more of his work, esp. his poetry.

Like some of the other reviewers, I wish there had been poetry and commentary from Viggo. However, there are so many paintings in this book that I couldn't be disappointed. I'm not an art snob by any means nor do I usually care for abstract art, but I enjoy Viggo's works because I am a fan and want to understand him better. I wish he would include some kind of description of what was behind the painting, a little about what he was thinking. But I guess that would be giving too much away.

This was my first book puchase with Viggo as author. I was disappointed that the introduction was not by Viggo himself. It is interesting what subject matter Viggo selects to capture in a picture. The pictures span a wide range of topics and are often significant from an artistic standpoint.

My favorite are the paintings. I understand that he didn't start painting until after he did the movie A Perfect Murder. He is a natural. His use of color exquisite. The paintings have many layers. Sometimes he covers them with handwriten words; his penmanship is suprisingly neat and legible, and you can often make out phrases.

I appreciate that he lets fans into his world.