http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3986684,00.html

Observer  2000-04-16

By Nick Paton Walsh


"And this looks like the real me"


   With a new exhibition by The Observer's Jane Bown opening at the end 
   of this month, Björk pays tribute to the photographer who didn't try 
   to turn her into a puffin-eating, crazy elf...


Long before I met Jane, I was in the Sugarcubes. We were purists and 
thought the media was the devil, that they were the ones who killed 
Elvis and all that. We were really anti-press. Also, I'd lived in 
Iceland all my life; I was violently shy. So it was only when I moved to 
London in 1993 that I said to myself: 'You're a coward; do 5,000 
interviews a day.' I jumped off a cliff into the media. 

When I met Jane I had been doing interviews for about 12-14 hours every 
day for three months. That much exposure was like an interesting 
chemistry experiment. At the time, I was really into it and found it 
exciting, but I took it simply as an experience. To meet Jane at that 
point was really refreshing. She was so no-nonsense and knew exactly 
what she was doing. There were no show-offy tricks or fake ways to get 
to know me. 

Sometimes, when you meet these strangers, and they're all foreigners, 
the idea of trying to be close and personal with someone in three 
seconds is really hard to deal with. Jane was different. Jane's really 
matter of-fact about things. I think she's definitely born with a 
talent. She knows. She can look at a person and she knows instinctively, 
straight away, who they are. She picks up more on the human side of 
people. A lot of photographers concentrated on the comical aspect of me 
and got me to do animated things - to be sort of an eskimo, puffin-
eating, crazy elf. But Jane was definitely not up for that. She just 
takes people as they are. She picks up the down-to-earth-nature in 
people in about five seconds. She will just ignore everything else, and 
ask you to sit down. She's also very calm - that's important. If the 
other person is neurotic then it's not a lot of fun. 

When we first met, I didn't know anything about her. I was meeting all 
the famous people ever and I didn't have a clue who they were. I 
remembered Jane more than the picture she took. There was a feeling that 
she didn't want to make anything out of me, was just taking me as I was, 
for who I am. It's very honest. It's not the strongest of descriptive 
words to use, but it's simply what it is. Honest. Her simplicity is the 
key, so to kind of throw too many words in there to try and describe it 
just confuses it. Although I don't know anything about her life, I can 
imagine her picking up that kind of honesty, say, 10 times a day. It's a 
consistency she has - a mood she brings. You get very grateful to be 
photographed by someone like that. 

The second time she photographed me was when I interviewed David 
Attenborough. I was a little nervous because I'd never met David before 
and he's my absolute hero. She was asking us to embrace each other, 
which made me very shy. But she was the same as the first time we met. 
She's just bulletproof. 

Jane's pictures will become part of a book about my career that I'm 
working on at the moment. My record company has spent five years 
convincing me it was the thing to do. I thought it was too self-
indulgent to put a book out about yourself. But it's not really about 
me, it's about the people who've given me a chance to say what I want to 
say. There's a section where I've asked some of the people I've worked 
with the most to contribute something that comes from them - it doesn't 
have to be anything to do with me. When I work with a designer or a 
photographer, a video director, a musician, a producer or an engineer, 
for me it's all the same interaction. It's about getting to know the 
person and then trying to find mutual ground. Where is the place we are 
both at home? In most cases, I've just been an umbrella. You see all my 
records and it just says Björk Björk Björk all over it, but at the end 
of the day, it's always a collaboration. 

Jane is one of several photographers - including Jurgen Teller, Nick 
Knight and Araki - in the book that I've chosen because they are quite 
truthful. People say photographers are documenting humans. It's either 
complete fantasy - the creative, theatrical, fantasy world - or there's 
the other extreme: face value. The covers of my albums are the fantasy 
element - they're not the way I look every day but have an element of 
truth to them. Jane's work is the opposite - the stark reality. Truth 
lies in one or other extreme. 

I don't know when we'll next meet. I'm lucky, I'm my own boss. Most 
people in my job have 5,000 people in skyscrapers making plans, but I 
can do whatever I want. It's always one day at a time round my house. 
Jane's putting a picture of me on the front of her new book. I'm just 
really honoured.


* Eye to Eye, an exhibition of photography by Jane Bown, runs from 23 
April to 28 May at the Foundation Gallery, Gate 13, Lamb Street, 
Spitalfields Market, London E1. Admission free. Open 12-3, Tuesday-
Friday. 10am-6pm, Sundays. Open Bank Holiday Monday