BOOKS

RECENT FORGERIES

Smart Art Press, Nov. 1998
softcover, 7 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches
110 pages, 83 reproductions
ISBN: 1-889195-32-4

Perceval Press: Recent Forgeries documents Viggo's first solo exhibition. It is an extraordinary look into the mind of an artist whose boundless creative output touches a myriad of media, from photography to painting to poetry to acting. Recent Forgeries includes a CD with music and spoken-word poetry. Introduction by Dennis Hopper.

ERRANT VINE

March 2000
booklet,
23 color and black/white plates
limited edition of about 300, signed by Viggo

SIGNLANGUAGE

Smart Art Press, Feb. 2002, 2003
softcover, 10 1/4 x 8 3/4 inches
84 pages, 95 reproductions
ISBN: 1-889195-49-9

Perceval Press: A catalogue that accompanied the "Signlanguage" exhibition at Track 16 Gallery in February, 2002, it features the photography and painting of Viggo Mortensen created primarily during his stay in New Zealand from 1999 to 2001. With an essay by Kevin Power.

HOLE IN THE SUN

Perceval Press 2002, 2003,
Hardcover,
6 x 6 inches,
96 pages,
52 reproductions
ISBN: 0-9721436-1-0

Perceval Press: A series that documents and abstracts the urban backyard swimming pool as monument. Color and black and white photographs are composed from late afternoon reflections on a still pool to the distressed architectural elements found inside the later empty and abandoned pool.

COINCIDENCE OF MEMORY

Perceval Press 2002, 2003
hardcover, 8 x 8 inches
66 pages, 57 reproductions
ISBN: 0-9721436-0-2

Perceval Press: In this beautifully illustrated book, the artist combines photographs, paintings, and poems that span his artistic output from 1978 to 2002.

NYE FALSKNERIER

Lindhardt & Ringhof Forlag 2003
soft cover,
69 pages

UN HUECO EN EL SOL

Perceval Press, May 2003
booklet, softcover
6 x 6 inches
24 pages
24 reproductions

45301

Perceval Press
hardcover, 8,5 x 9,75 inches
94 pages
ISBN 0-9721436-3-7

Perceval Press: Abstract images, fragments and phrases from poems, notes, journals, words/thoughts remembered or imagined as they slip away, come together in 45301 to create a dense, thought-provoking photography book. Many of the photographs were shot during Mortensen's recent travels to Morocco, Cuba, and the northern plains of the United States, but could have been shot in your backyard. Depending on one's point of view, the imagery can be seen as either fighting with light or embracing it, holding time or forgetting it.

EPHËMERIS
Viggo Mortensen: Photographs 1978-2003

June 2003,
in Katalog (museum magazine)

MIYELO

Perceval Press 2003
hardcover, linen
10,5 x 17 inches, 64 pages
ISBN 0-9721436-7-X

Perceval Press: Miyelo is comprised of a series of large-scale, panoramic photographs of a Lakota Ghost Dance, taken from a single roll of film in March of 2003. The images record a re-creation of the dance that was originally performed by members of Chief Big Foot's band on December 29, 1890 near Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. The intent was to capture the event as a delirious remembrance, an ephemeral dream. Accompanying these and other related images is extensive literary and historical documentation of the period during which the Ghost Dance originated, leading up to and beyond the tragic massacre at Wounded Knee. With selected first-hand accounts of the event, as well as modern-day commentary and a comprehensive bibliography, Miyelo gives the reader an overview that otherwise might only be gained from examining a myriad of sources. Texts by Mike Davis, James Mooney, and Sonny Richards.

MO TE-UPOKO-O-TE IKA / FOR WELLINGTON

Perceval Press Dec. 2003
hardcover
10.5 x 6.5 inches, 96 pages
ISBN 0-9721436-8-8

Perceval Press: Mo Te Upoko-o-te-ika/For Wellington is a book to accompany the joint exhibitions currently on at Massey University and the Wellington City Gallery, in New Zealand. Photographer Viggo Mortensen says "I've seen and learned a great deal so far in that beautiful country, and am glad to have been able to return many of the images made during my time there and share them with the people of Aotearoa."

THE HORSE IS GOOD

Perceval Press, Jan. 2004
softcover
6.5 x 9.5 inches, 72 pages
ISBN 0-9747078-1-3

Perceval Press: Horses as partners, as teachers, as fellow travelers asking no favors and returning respect for respect. (...) Images from Morocco, South Dakota, Montana, California, Iceland, New Zealand, Denmark, Brazil, Argentina, and perhaps from the view out your window.

LINGER

Perceval Press, November 2005
hardcover
104pages, 91/2 x 81/4 inches
ISBN 0-9774869-3-1

Perceval Press:  New black and white photographs and words from Viggo Mortensen that look directly at loss, change, and renewal. In making Linger, he strives to find a still place from which to see and interpret the world around him. The imagery in this book deals frankly with family, strangers, and landscape that Mortensen has recently been able to spend extended time with, rather than hurriedly observe as just one more passing ghost with a camera and a notebook. Although we might occasionally find in these newer images hints of the chaotic abstractions that have recently dominated his work, Linger evidences a patience with things as they come to be and, consequently, a tranquility long-absent from both his photography and writing.

I FORGET YOU FOR EVER

Perceval Press, May 2006
Softcover
132-pages
ISBN 978-0-9763009-3-9

Viggo Mortensen presents "new contexts for old feelings, trusting the formation of sentences that may or may not take me anywhere" and the images that may or may not show us something we can see. Configurations of photographs and words captured near and far, shown clearly or hardly at all, in a continuing effort to trail lost memory and hold mirror shards to what we discard.