Mike had me cornered. He had graduated a long time ago, but his tastes had not. He still went to high school house parties to drool over girls who read. Bold and had their braces tightened every four weeks.
“Hey,” he said to my padded bra.
“Hey,” I grumbled in response.
Adulthood had given Mike a power he was eager to exploit; he could buy alcohol legally. Since my underage friends and I relied on people like Mike to provide us with Boone's Strawberry Hill, we were wary of them. Mocking these losers could jeopardize our access to saccharine wines. It could also put us in danger.
Mike pointed his half-empty bottle of Zima in my face and asked, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Buh-Jork?”
“You mean… Björk?”
Mike ignored my correction and instead asked, “What are you? You're so… exotic. He rambled on about Buh-jork's “kind of Asian attractiveness” until my friends came to my rescue.
I confess this shameful memory of Generation X as a gesture of solidarity. Many multiracial women of a certain age were similarly fetishized by their local Mikes, and for those of us perceived as embodying a certain kind of racial ambiguity, being flirtatiously compared to Buh-jork was a collective rite of passage in the 1990s. The disgusting guys stereotyped us, presenting us as orientalized, manic dream girls.
When One Little Indian and Elektra Entertainment released Björk Guðmundsdóttir's international debut solo album in July 1993, the world went crazy for the record. “Her Debut” introduced the 28-year-old Icelandic musician to millions of fans, but some of us already admired her; That's why we knew not to butcher her name. We were kids who listened to the Sugarcubes, the alternative rock band for which Björk sang and played keyboard. Released in 1992, “Stick Around for Joy” became the Sugarcubes' third and final album, and it gave me “Hit,” a melodramatic song perfect for channeling my sophomore woes. I was amazed by the way Björk growled the exasperated lyric, “This wasn't supposed to happen,” and adopted those five words as my own, growling the verse when I got F's on French exams or popped ripe pimples too close to the mirror. of the bathroon.
The two-hour shoot at the Chateau Marmont took place the day before Spike Jonze and Björk began work on the iconic video for the single “It's Oh So Quiet.”
(Spike Jonze)
Among those in love with “Debut” was Spike Jonze, a pivotal figure in the history of California skate culture. Jonze's passion for documenting street skating led him to film and he became a noted music video director whose easily identifiable style, marrying indie and chic, shaped the visual aesthetic of the '90s and early '90s. ninety. In 1995, Detour magazine sent Jonze to the Chateau Marmont to photograph Björk. Five years earlier, the historic French Gothic castle located at the top of Sunset Boulevard had changed hands and come under a new owner. Hotelier André Balazs subjected his acquisition to a facelift that erased much of its rough and tumble charm. Tattered curtains, matted carpets and missing shower heads were replaced. A gym was installed in the attic. After witnessing its restoration, former It girl Eve Babitz, a Chateau regular, lamented, “I couldn't imagine wanting to commit suicide here anymore.”
The singer winks aggressively at the camera, as if he were a pirate. We catch a glimpse of Björk, but the voyeurism is mutual.
(Spike Jonze)
The two-hour Detour session took place the day before Jonze and Björk began working on the iconic video for the single “It's Oh So Quiet,” and the mountain of photographs they created together revives some of the Chateau's former mystique. Björk and Jonze made use of the hotel's interiors and pool, and the results are imbued with a sense of otherworldly joy that tells me the couple probably had a great time making art together. The results also present Björk's beauty and intelligence as hers, not ours to devour. This self-possession is evident in one of six photographs published as part of the 1995 music edition of Detour. In it, the singer winks aggressively at the camera, reminiscent of a pirate. She hides much of his body, especially skin, from the lens. Her pose forces the viewer to look at her face, drawing attention to her eye. We catch a glimpse of Björk, but the voyeurism is mutual.
Decades after the Chateau photo shoot, fashion designer and creative director Humberto León discovered a trove of outtakes while helping Jonze organize his archive. The two met in 2004, when Jason Schwartzman introduced Jonze to Leon at a Christmas party, and the pair quickly developed a close bond, becoming each other's artistic sounding boards. The photographs struck a nostalgic chord in León, a longing for the subcultural days of yesteryear, and after proposing that Jonze exhibit at Arroz and Fun, León's restaurant and gallery in Lincoln Heights, the two decided to exhibit 25 of the never-evers. views of Jonze. photographs previously seen in the space (the exhibition opens on February 15 and will remain open until May). For die-hard fans who couldn't make it to Lincoln Heights, Jonze will also be releasing “The Day I Met Björk,” a free downloadable zine via WeTransfer. A limited supply of physical prints will be sold at the gallery.
The image of Björk holding a cup of latte against her lips evokes the mornings after teenage sleepovers.
(Spike Jonze)
Often, when a photographer photographs an ingenue in a hotel room, she ends up on the bed in a suggestive pose not found in nature. She thinks of Britney Spears' first cover for Rolling Stone photographed by David LaChapelle, in which the teenager wears lingerie, holds a phone to her ear, and holds a Teletubby. She is pure lolita. Rather than invoking such motifs, the shots of Björk in Jonze's bedroom are a silly girls' sleepover, the kind my friends and I had. Wrapped in white sheets, the singer transforms into a cheerful elf jumping on the bed, reminding me of the time I jumped so hard on my bed that it broke. This angered my father, but here's the thing: sometimes it's worth making your father angry. The other photo from Björk's bedroom, in which she is wearing an orange button-down blouse and sitting at the foot of the bed, holding a cup of latte to her lips, reminds me of the morning after our teenage sleepovers . Recovery from our bender required us to drink Alka-Seltzer and devour the Menudo.
If we scan the contact sheets from the session, our mind can construct a moving image of Björk as artist and muse.
(Spike Jonze)
If we scan the contact sheets from the session, our mind can construct a moving image of Björk as artist and muse. She walks through doors, down hallways, and toward the light. Enveloping her face, her glow creates a white eclipse. While this series of photographs taken of Björk dressed in orange relies on supernatural tropes, those taken in the bathroom go further, entering the realm of the supernatural, of time travel. In a pose reminiscent of fight scenes from “The Matrix” franchise, Björk appears in suspended animation, her back arched, her head frozen over the faucet and her arms dangling at her sides. She looks up, at no one. The pose is vulnerable and ethereal enough. It raises the question of whether or not we can live in the same dimension as Björk.
My favorite portrait created at the Chateau was taken underwater. Once again, Björk appears suspended, this time dressed in deep blue. Her brown hair swirls and snakes, reaching the surface. She is illuminated by the Los Angeles sun, whose rays create an aura above her head. Her green dress evokes the illusion that Björk is a scaly creature, breathing through gills and using a tail to propel herself through lakes, rivers and oceans. She could also use that tail in self-defense. The photo is reminiscent of another classic image from the '90s, Nirvana's “Nevermind” album cover featuring the water baby. As Nirvana's baby opens both arms, Björk uses her right arm to wave at the camera.
(Spike Jonze)
She seems happiest as a mermaid, and I can't help but hope that her joy comes from her affinity for sirens, those ancient Greek mermen who lured sailors with their magical voices, only to inspire these hypnotized sailors to sacrifice themselves against the cliffs next to the sea. sea. . Björk is not a Disney mermaid. Instead, I imagine that, as a sea creature, she has more in common with Michi-Cihualli, the fish woman who lives in Chapala, the Mexican freshwater lake where I spent part of my childhood. According to the Coca people, Michi-Cihualli is the daughter of Tláloc, the god of rain. When the winds blow strongly over the lake and storms approach its waters, it is said that Michi-Cihualli becomes angry and must be pacified. Calming her requires blood, and my imagination can easily conjure Björk accepting a blood sacrifice, biting into the rib of an annoying sailor who dared to tell her she looked exotic.
In 1996, a video emerged of Björk attacking journalist Julie Kaufman at the Bangkok airport. The scene dispelled the popular image of the singer as a no-nonsense, erotic elf and cemented her status as someone not to mess with, someone willing to draw some blood. An artist happily in control of her trademark weirdness, Björk's queerness in the music world meant a lot to would-be weirdos like me. Instead of the typical hypersexualized vampire, Björk offered girls like me a different model, and the more queer she revealed herself, the deeper our loyalty to her. The singer's images were part of the collage that covered my bedroom walls when she was a teenager, and I hope Björk's newly released photographs get into the hands of the right kids. There are so many girls who need a fierce siren with a beautiful voice to sing them into adulthood.
Björk is an artist who happily controls her characteristic strangeness.
(Spike Jonze)
Myriam Gurba is the author of “Mean,” a ghostly survival memoir that was selected as a New York Times Editors' Choice. His latest book, “Creep: Accusations and Confessions,” was published by Avid Reader Press.
