![]() The disapproval has come, rather, from the lack of structure, research, and argument on the part of Klaus Biesenbach, the show’s curator – whose apathetic approach left Björk to flounder in a domain where she has no experience. Roberta Smith, the co-chief art critic of the New York Times, correctly insisted that Björk actually deserved a MoMA retrospective more than several fine artists whom the museum has given more space and more consideration. Deborah Solomon pointed out that MoMA has engaged with popular art forms, notably cinema, since the 1930s. None of the disapproval, it’s worth pointing out, has anything to do with Björk’s status as a pop star. The shock has extended deep into the art world and the general public the show was the talk of last week’s art fairs in New York, and Artforum’s indefatigable chronicler Linda Yablonsky called it “the most embarrassing exhibition at MoMA for as long as the living can recall”. I called it weirdly unambitious, and my colleagues have turned to words such as “ abominable,” “ ludicrously infantilizing,” and “ self-inflicted wound” to describe the work of an artist we all admire, but the disapproval goes well beyond us critics. The MoMA retrospective, billed as a groundbreaking exercise in presenting music in a museum, is nothing short of a fiasco – a jumbled, unreflective miscarriage that has elicited a universal critical drubbing. It has not been an easy week for anyone who appreciates Björk. “You fear my limitless emotions,” Björk sang, and you can see why one might. Black Lake, the album’s desolate 10-minute centerpiece, was a masterwork: a deliberate, overpowering crescendo from weakness to fury, which the percussionist Manu Delago punctuated with beats that sounded like landmine explosions. Family, pared down from the cacophonous album version, became a gruelingly beautiful eulogy to lost domesticity. ![]() Happily, Vulnicura sounds much better live than on record, and the chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound beautifully rendered the hesitant lines of Stonemilker into lush, complex arrangements, over which Björk pleaded for “emotional respect”. On the other, it lacks the care and precision that went into Homogenic and Vespertine, her greatest achievements, and the string arrangements in particular can at times descent into self-parody. On the one hand, it’s her best album in 14 years, and its melodramatic heartbreak has a definite bravery. Yet as she settled into the new material Björk opened up, and reaffirmed that her gifts have not slipped away. She frequently turned away from the audience, and on the short song History of Touches she couldn’t sing the words at all, replacing the lyrics with her trademark ah-sih-mah-lay-kah-ah-ah Björkish. She played the first six songs from Vulnicura, which chronicle her breakup with the artist Matthew Barney, as a single set and with evident difficulty. The Icelandic singer put on a brave face as she took to the stage of Carnegie Hall this weekend – insofar as you could make her face out beneath the spiky headdress, designed by Maiko Takeda, that engulfed her whole skull. In the space of a few days, the concert became not just a debut of new material, but a comeback effort. The struggle of performing such naked and personal music before thousands of people got compounded earlier this week, though, when her disastrous “retrospective” at the Museum of Modern Art elicited the worst reviews of her career. B jörk was never going to find it easy, you must imagine, to play her first concert of songs from her brokenhearted new album Vulnicura.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |