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List Price: $25.00 | | Publisher: Smart Art Pr
Salesrank: 108306
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| Our Price: $20.99 |
| Used Price: $13.80 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
This long awaited second publication by the highly recognized film actor and artist/poet, Viggo Mortensen melds his acutely sensitive ability to intertwine words, paintings and photography into one lyrical conceptual landscape. Working like a personal diary, SignLanguage, takes us on a visual journey into the soul of Mortensen's creative forces. His diary-based photographs, taken while filming 'The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Rings' become dream-like landscapes shrouded in mystery and suspense while his multi-layered paintings entwine themselves around stanzas of poetry. The melding of all three forces allows the reader to become acutely aware of the details surrounding the artists existence, a multiple of split-second images burned into the mind of a thousand different places.
SignLanguage exquisitely features extensive color and black and white reproductions of both his photographic works and his intensely personal collage based paintings, partly intertwined in an informative essay by international critic and poet, Kevin Power. Special highlights also include unique photographs by Mortensen while on location during the filming of 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'.
SignLanguage Reviews:
Strange Sign Language 
2005-03-08 - Disconnected, Disjointed, Dissassociated, Disoriented
Fragmented, Confused, Illussionary
All is Meaningless, Hopeless, Helpless, Worthless, Emotionless
Lost, No goals, No ambitions, No absolutes, No past, No future
Only the moment counts, obsession with the Now.
These are my impressions of this book. From goth, punk (Henry's dyed spiked hair, painted face & fingernails wearing a girl's fur jacket) to dead (Yes, there is even a graphic photo of a dead bloody carcass or a donkey.) Kevin Power, University Alicante, Spain gives a gallery style narrative of Mortensen's pics and paintings but you have to search for which item he is writing about. He states" Viggo Mortensen's photographs are not so much about something..." These pics are about nothing. Another comment by Power "Mortensen again and again focuses and frames his sense of being in the world, the strangeness of it and his strangeness before it." AND HOW STRANGE IT IT! It you truly want to see the "strangeness" of Mortensen's work, this shows it. My regret, that I even bother to look at all. It strikes me with an oppressive sadness that this might be considered a work of art.
For the paintings 
2005-02-01 - 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.
Not bad.
2005-01-10 - 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.
This is the one if you're after the Lord of the Rings pix! 
2004-07-19 - 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.
ZOWZA!
2004-05-03 - I am completely blown away by the nonsensical willowings of the uppermost layer. It truly speaks of divine reality and sequestered formality. If, indeed that is the intent, then I applaud every inkling of the proverbial artist, not only in asmuch as one does, but also because of the intentional effort that cries out, "I am!".
