Press release
E P H Ë M E R I S
Viggo Mortensen (USA): Photographs 1978 - 2003
June 28 - September 21, 2003

In Denmark, 44 year old Viggo Mortensen is most widely associated with Aragorn in The Lords of the Rings movies, while he is relatively unknown as a visual artist and poet. Yet, long before his acting career, from his early childhood, he has continually worked with pictures and words.

Museet for Fotokunst now presents Viggo Mortensen the photographic artist, and throughout the summer will exhibit his works that span 26 years, taken in USA, New Zealand and Africa.

Even though some of his photos may have been taken in places where Mortensen's movies were shot, they are in no way film stills. Rather, they may be characterized as poetic, meditative studies of people, places and landscapes, often with great sensitivity of expression and a surreal vision.

The exhibition comprises about 100 photos (colour and b/w work); and it is the first major retrospective in Europe, showing Mortensen's photographs. It is arranged in direct collaboration with Viggo Mortensen.

KATALOG, the museum's photographic journal, will be published medio June, containing a 14 page presentation of the exhibition. It will feature a comprehensive essay by Lonnie Hansen, MA., about Viggo Mortensen.

PRESS PHOTOS: Cdrom is available or download photos from www.brandts.dk, go to Museet for Fotokunst and then presse/press. In connection with the exhibition Museet for Fotokunst has arranged a POETRY READING in the nearby theatre MAGASINET, Brandts Passage 26, Saturday, June 28, at 5 p.m. giving the audience the opportunity of hearing Viggo Mortensen read from his poetry collections in English and Danish, followed by booksigning.
Admittance with a ticket only. Almost sold out, only a few tickets remain for the press. Please contact marieke.burgers@brandts.dk for press tickets.

About Viggo Mortensen - photographer, poet, painter, actor

Viggo Mortensen was born in 1958 in New York, but due to his father's itinerant work has lived in a variety of places, among them Venezuela and Argentina, where he spent several years. It was here that Viggo Mortensen Senior, who originally was a farmer from Denmark, ran a farm with his American wife. During this time Viggo Mortensen learnt to speak Spanish fluently, as well as attaining at an early age, the expert horsemanship that can be seen in many of his films, where he performs the majority of the stunts himself.

While growing up Viggo Mortensen spent many holidays with his family in Denmark. After graduating from St. Lawrence University in government and Spanish literature in the USA, he moved to Denmark and lived with his family for a few years. Just like the majority of young people he had a variety of jobs: a flower seller in the streets of Copenhagen, a dock worker in Esbjerg, Kalundborg, and the Danish shipyard B&W, also in a mill in Ringsted and as a waiter at Jan Hurtigkarl's restaurant.

He moved back to the USA in the early 1980's and began studying acting at Warren Robertson's Theater Workshop in New York. Later he moved to Los Angeles, where in 1987 he won a Drama-Logue Critics Award for his role in "Bent" at the Coast Playhouse. Since arriving in Los Angeles, he has also been active in the Southern California poetry and spoken word community, often participating in spoken-word events. Some of these performances and recordings have been collaborations with fellow poets and musicians such as Buckethead, Exene Cervenka, Donita Sparks, D.J. Bonebrake, and several others.

Viggo Mortensen has appeared in more than 30 films (also Spanish) and among colleagues he is known as an accomplished character actor. However, it is due to his interpretation of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings that he finally had his international breakthrough.

Acting, however, represents just one of Viggo Mortensen's many skills. Since early childhood he has passionately and continually worked with pictures and words. This has previously been reserved for a close circle of friends. Photography, poetry and painting gives him a sense of completion, and in these fields, more importantly, he can leave his artistic mark, as opposed to acting in film, where the director ultimately has the last word over the finished product.
In the course of his career Viggo Mortensen's poetry has been published in several books: The poetry collection "Ten Last Night" (Illuminati Press, 1993); "Recent Forgeries" (Smart Art Press, 1998), which includes not only poetry, but photographs, paintings and a spoken-word CD. The latter accompanied his first major one-person multi-media exhibtition at Track 16 Gallery in Santa Monica, California.

Subsequent exhibitions have included: "One Man's Meat: New Paintings" at Beyond Baroque, Venice, California (1999); "Errant Vine" at Robert Mann Gallery in New York, (2000); "Signlanguage" at both Track 16 Gallery (2002) and The Richard F. Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University (2003), and "Un hueco en el sol" at the Fototeca de Cuba in Havana (2003). The exhibition catalogue for "Signlanguage" primarily features photographs and paintings which were made during Mortensen's 1_-year long stay in New Zealand from 1999 to 2001. The book contains a comprehensive essay titled "A Life Tracking Itself" by Kevin Power, who teaches American Literature at the Alicante University in Spain. Also in 2002 "Hole in Sun" and "Coincidence of Memory" were published by Perceval Press.

In 2002 Viggo Mortensen launched Perceval Press, a small independent publishing company dedicated to the arts, poetry, and literature.

In Denmark, Lindhardt and Ringhof has published, "Nye Falsknerier" in 2003, with selected poems translated from some of the above-mentioned American publications.

Lis Steincke
curator