EPHËMERIS ODENSE 2003

GOING TO ODENSE

Being part of a group who was going to Odense not only to see the exhibition in the Museet for Fotokunst but also to finally meet each other in person, I left Hamburg by train on thursday morning in overcast and cool weather. Expectations were high, and for me meeting a lot of women I only knew from the web was at least as important as finally getting a closer look at Viggo Mortensen's art (and maybe The Man himself). The train ride was uneventful inspite of delays, and when we arrived in central Fyn we were greeted by a brilliant blue Danish sky, hot weather, and a beautiful and very Danish town. Fyn is the island situated between the mainland and Sjælland, the island where Copenhagen is. (Viggo's family is from Sjælland.)

Odense is birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen and Denmark's third-largest city - the fairy-tale capital of Funen (Fyn), home of 200,000 people and with a history stretching back over 1000 years (this information comes straight from the city's website). Right in the middle of Odense is Brandts Klædefabrik, which was for more than a century one of the largest employers in Odense. In 1977, the cloth mill was closed, for a few years it was vacant, and then it was gently renovated to become Denmark's first international center for art and culture. It houses the Danish Graphic Museum, the Museum for Photographic Art, several galleries, and a bookstore.

Taking up residence in the Youth Hostel right next to the train station we met others from our group, most of whom we had never seen before. To be able to find each other we had agreed on wearing a button with a pink pawprint, a sign representing the Farthest Outpost, the board we are all on. In all we were almost 20 people, and we knew there would be more from other boards in town, too. We were hoping to meet at least a few of them in the days to come.

The first day passed with getting to know each other, getting to know the town - and finding the way to Brandts of course, the place where the exhibition was going to open on friday night. On our way there we saw the first posters for the exhibition, one with Chris' dogs and one with Topanga #7.

We found Brandts within walking distance of our temporary home. On the ground floor there is a bookstore, and here we had our first glimpse of 45301. There was a stack of the new books, and of course everybody wanted it. The pile was gone pretty soon, but the friendly and very helpful staff produced more boxes of books, facing the first onslaught of what was going to get much crazier during the following days. A new book is always a promise of pleasures to come, and one awaited with so much anticipation has quite a lot to live up to. Some of us were taking a first look right then and there, others were saving it for later. There was a flyer announcing the exhibition, too, with Hindsight #2 on it, and the museum's new catalogue which has Erfoud #5 on the cover and 16 pages of photos and text covering Ephëmeris (ephëmeris - Greek for diary, log). So with the posters, books and catalogues we had our first shopping expedition complete and retired to the park to get a good look at 45301.

The new book is an exercise in abstraction. Aside from the imprint and a list of pictures there is virtually no typeset text, not even page numbers - but there is a lot of handwritten text, in layers, reversed, inverted, huge, tiny... most of it just beyond legibility, constantly teasing with snippets of sentences, words, scribbles. Embedded in this maze of thoughts and quotes are the photos, as abstract as you can get without leaving the medium photography behind. It is a beautiful and provoking book, a pleasure and a challenge.

THE OPENING

The next morning Odense greeted us with another hot and dry day, so I had definitely packed the wrong clothes and had to go shopping for T-shirts. We explored the town and got to know each other better. Our group consisted of 19 women between 13 and mid-fifties from seven nationalities, and it was an amazing experience to see how close we got in such a short time. It was wonderful to finally put faces to names and to really talk to people we had known for quite a while now on the board.

The opening was supposed to be a t 19:00, doors would open at 17:30, admission by ticket only. The museum's staff had braved the overwhelming wave of emails for weeks, trying to deal with a situation they were probably neither expecting nor prepared for, but everybody was friendly and helpful. There was some security personnel in addition to the permanent staff - perhaps the constant flood of emails had resulted in a certain amount of fear of hordes of hysterical women about to storm the gallery

The tickets were given out by number and name, and we could go up the staircase to the first floor to wait in front of the gallery, where the exhibition was still behind closed doors. Slowly a group of waiting people was forming, and as the day outside was still unusually hot, and Brandts has tall windows, the room was getting stuffy soon. Several of the staff members were wearing Viggo's T-shirts with "War is not the answer", and one of them had a target drawn on it where it stretched over his belly, with "Thanks for all the help, Jørgen, Viggo" written on it - so obviously the artist had already been at work...

We were waiting more or less patiently, and met a group of four american women who had been mentioned in the press for having come all the way from the States to see the exhibition. After a lot of fanning with the beautiful cards that served as flyers for the exhibitions but had been used as invitations and tickets for the opening too, and the brave attempt of two gentlemen to open more windows with insufficient tools, the door to the gallery opened, and we were allowed in.

We had a first look at the exhibition - there were many familiar pictures, and even more new ones, but the room was hot and crowded, and concentration was hard to come by at that time. There were close to a hundred pictures, more than half of which I had never seen before, and I was glad to know that I would have time to come back repeatedly. After a while the crowd started to drift towards the back of the gallery where a mike stand indicated that this was where the speeches were going to be held. We were by that time closer to the entrance and decided to stay there, because the air was already very stuffy, and the mass of people standing in front of the microphone was standing pretty dense.

I saw Pilar Perez looking into the gallery from the hallway, and then she came in with Viggo and his son Henry. Viggo was without the beard we had seen on pictures from NZ, his hair looked like it had survived a last minute attack with a brush, he wore black jeans and a grey shirt. Oh - and shoes, too. Nobody had reason to complain about the lack of colourful shirts though, because Henry held up the reputation of the Mortensen men with a yellow/brown/orange piece that looked like straight out of the 70s. Viggo was looking tense, like he had to take a deep breath to take on this room full of people, he was looking mostly down or at Pilar, and they walked quickly up to the microphone.

First a gentleman held a short speech which gave the non-Danish guests ample opportunity to hear how the name Viggo Mortensen is pronounced in Danish. I think it was Finn Thrane, the director of the Museet for Fotokunst, and next was Lis Steincke, the curator. In the excitement of the day she had lost her manuscript, and it took a minute until somebody from the staff came through holding up the page with her speech to a round of applause. When she had finished it was Viggo's turn to step up to the mike. He was barely visible from where we stood, and he was talking too low for me to understand much. He was speaking Danish for the first part of his speech, a little nervously, laughing now and then. He ended but then returned to the mike to thank Henry for his patience. Obviously he had done so in Danish, and wanted to say it in English again so Henry would understand it. There was a short round of applause, and then people were milling around where Viggo was. Suddenly he walked out onto the balcony that runs along the house in front of the gallery, and most of the crowd rushed out in pursuit. Those of our group who had not been so lucky as to get a ticket and were standing in the square in front of Brandts saw Viggo come out onto the balcony, then standing with his back to the railing. When the crowd was rushing at him he was pressed back against it, staying there writing autographs.

We didn't feel comfortable about adding to the pressure and stayed back inside the gallery, getting a closer look at the pictures now that the room had emptied a little. Slowly the group that had rushed him outside dispersed, quite a few of them leaving with their autographs without taking further notice of the exhibition, which I found a little sad. But the atmosphere, that had been quite tense for a while, lightened. Viggo was still out on the balcony, but now he was able to move around, and seemed a lot more relaxed than before. He was talking to people, laughing, greeting what seemed to be friends and family with embraces.

There was a boy stepping up to him, explaining something, and Viggo drew something on his arm like a tattoo. It said, "Til Super-Mikkel (heart) Viggo". Candy, who understands Danish, told me that the boy's name was Mikkel, the same as in one of the photos.

Viggo & Mikkel

Viggo was focussing on everyone who approached him, giving each person the impression that they had his full attention at least for the moment the encounter lasted.

When Candy stepped up to him to give him something she had brought, among other things beer, and explained about it being from the northernmost brewery in Norway, mentioning the name of the place, he told her that he had been there, and explained at length (and with a lot of gesturing) how he had got there. She got into the spirit of it, and they both were drawing maps in the air, showing each other which way from lapland, which fjord to cross, and which polar bear to avoid to get there. All the time he held on to the beer, and in the end he thanked her for the gifts and kissed her, so she went back into the gallery in quite a haze.

    
Viggo, Candy & Norse beer

He stayed on the balcony for longer, still signing, while everybody else was either having wine and hors d'oeuvres in the hallway, chatting, or looking at the exhibition. Eventually Viggo came back in, posing for a few press photos, first with the director of the museum, then with Mikkel, who proudly presented his "tattoo". By that time security kindly but firmly ushered the guests out, and the gallery was closed for the public for that evening.

I think it was a pity that Viggo was "reduced" to being a movie star by the almost instant rush for autographs. He should have been given a little more time and space to be the visual artist he was on that evening, the one whose exhibition was opening.

Odense is not really a small town, but maybe the sudden invasion by at least 300 people caught everybody by surprise - we did encounter a few hiccups when it came to getting room and food for almost twenty people in cafés and restaurants. We ended the day of the opening with a chinese dinner and talked about the exhibition and the opening, and later joined the rest of the group in a café for beer and more talk. Somebody bought a newspaper with an article about the exhibition, and the night ended in front of the computer in the basement of the Youth Hostel, giving at least a sign of life for the community, even though everybody was much too keyed up and tired to post a coherent report.

THE EXHIBITION

The next day was saturday ­ the day of the reading in Magasinet, a theater opposite Brandts, and the book signing that was supposed to follow. These events required tickets for admission too. The reading was scheduled for 17:00, so we had time to start the day at the gallery, and everybody finally got to see the exhibition. In the line already forming at the entrance to Brandts we were happy to meet the last "unknown" member of our group.

Staff at the museum was as kind, organized, and friendly as on the day before. Admission fee to Brandts is amazingly low, and if you only want to see Ephëmeris it is even cheaper. This time we could do the exhibition justice. It is spanning the time from 1978 to the present, 93 pictures in all, more than half of them shot during the past two years. The gallery itself is well lit and spacious, nothing distracts from the pictures on display. All the photos are framed in blond wood (maple, as Pilar Perez told us at the opening). It was good to finally see familiar pictures "for real", several of my favourites were there, but it were the new ones that blew me away.

Some of our group were lucky and got a special tour of the exhibition with Lis Steincke, the curator. She explained the origin of the circle shape of a lot of the pictures (you see one on the cover of Un Hueco en el Sol at PP's website). Turns out it is the result of yet another broken camera, this time a damaged lens in the Hasselblad (an information that made me happy, because I would have hated for it to be just Photoshop...) We had read how Lis Steincke got the idea to invite Viggo to do this exhibition: She went (reluctantly) to see LOTR, was intrigued by the actor portraying Strider, accessed Google, typed in "Viggo Mortensen", hit "search" ­ and then found out he was much more than just an actor. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

 
The exhibition room

I am not an art critic, and indeed am not even good at dissecting pictures. Being a photographer myself I have the fatal tendency to look at the "how" more than at the "what". I am learning to leave that behind though, because I think that it blocks the access to what a picture is about. I am not really a very technical photographer, but still I find myself wondering "How did he do that?", when probably the better question is, "Why did he do that?" The more I turn away from technicalities the more am I falling in love with abstract photographic images. So if in the following I am offering sometimes more a glimpse at what the new pictures triggered than a description as such, please bear with me.

The first group of new pictures consists of Marrakesh and Marrakesh#2, Hindsight#59 South and South#2, and Erfoud#33, all of them black and white. Which is where the similarity stops already... The two Marrakech pictures are shapes of trees moving past the eye, blurring but still compact, very different from Sueño del Retiro with its shifting greys. Here the trees dissolve into a violently moving pattern.

Hindsight#59 ­ horses tied among ruins, on the ground footsteps leading to where the photographer must be standing. The whole picture like something from a very old movie, or a very fresh dream.

South and South#2 - grainy and blurry images of figures standing at the road side watching. They look like memories of past lives, their features blurred.

Erfoud#33 taken in a completely different century. A print of running horses, sticking behind a lamp? taillight?, the white wall it is on vertically dividing the picture in two uneven halves, with the view of a landscape and part of a tank truck. So many associations triggered, all of them left hanging in mid-air, a picture in a picture

Then, following a group of familiar photos, Go#16 and Hindsight#32. A portrait of a tree in sharp focus, and next to it the dream wood with two running horses that could easily be unicorns. More well known faces, and then

Noon#2,3. Strong colours, two overlapping frames, shot straight into the glaring sun, with a horse's head moving between the camera and the blue sky.

Then, a little later, Hacia Mariel. A grey blue sky with a hint of landscape at the bottom of the frame, passing by before it can be recognized, the main emphasis on the leaden clouds, all of it more an impression than depiction.

Fototeca and Fototeca#2. Here is no warmth left, just the white of the sky streaking over the bluish forms of palm fronds and shuttered windows, dissolving them into an abstract pattern, or in #2 a strong circular movement with the same cool colours, drawing the eye into the center.

Erfoud#4 and #5 - two variations on a theme. #4 was on Perceval Press' homepage for a while, on first look a view through arabian arched windows, out on a town and blue sky, which then turns out to be a deteriorating wall of which the blue paint is peeling, while the "windows" are made up of the silhouette of arches the sun is projecting on that wall.

Erfoud#60 - intense red of a wall with strong black pattern of a tree's shadow over it.

Hoka-hei, the fleeting dusty impression of riding, the red in the center almost pulsing.

Topanga#7, which is on one of the two posters for the exhibition. A self portrait, one of the circular images, the profile almost drowning in flickering yellow and green.

Grandview ­ suddenly we are back in the world, only to find ourselves in the shadow behind an overgrown picket fence, a treacherous idyll filled with darkness.

Hos Farfar (at grandfather's) - a portrait of Henry sitting in a shadowy garden.

Christmas#2 - again the shadows, this time with a bright light on the needles of a tree.

Erfoud#11, the blaze from a hearth lighting just an arm holding a copper pot, almost a monochrome if it were not for the blue of the sleeve. Another picture that looks like culled from ancient memories.

Morning#3 - at the bottom of the circle a bleached jaw bone, at the top the silhouette of dunes with two figures standing before the pale sunrise sky. In this case the circular image doesn't lead the eye into the center, the center is just the space between the bone and the backlit figures. A strange balance between bleakness and hope.

Hindsight #2, which was on the flyer and the tickets. A b&w view of a teepee before a sunset sky, seen over the flames of a campfire. A deeply melancholy picture, very beautiful. Here the circular shape works like the vignette in an old photo.

Hindsight#24/25 two overlapping shots of a paint horse with rider, shot against the sun. The light is stinging in your eyes, making it hard to see the face of horse and rider.

Hindsight #48/49 two pictures showing a teepee village, again with the campfire in the foreground. In one of them you see people in american natives costume, and again that feeling of sadness and loss, the blurriness enhancing it.

Hindsight#43 the teepee village seen over the barrel of a canon. No soft circle this time, but the clinically harsh square of a full negative. A scary view.

Ride#29 - is at the time being on the home page of Perceval Press. The rich reddish tone highlighted with the golden reflexes is beautiful.

Hindsight#75 a colourful sunset sky with silhouettes of several people in costume, in the foreground one in traditional american native clothes. The light from the sky is bleeding into the bodies' outlines, dissolving them.

North#6 the glow in the middle of a campfire where it is hottest - you almost feel the moisture on your eyeballs dry out looking into it. It has all the hypnotizing power of a real fire when you look into it and get lost.

Hindsight#53 a view of the teepee village, this time in strong colours, shot straight into the sun, the reflections forming a corona around the light in the center and the teepees, colour is bleeding into the dark parts of the picture. It looks very much alive.

Wild#13 a hand holding food out to a horse, the viewpoint of the camera is low, like from a crouching position, and the horse is standing ready to bolt, but intrigued with the bait. The picture draws me into the situation, I want that horse to come closer

Ride#2 the horizon divides it into the black foreground and a brilliant blue pre dawn (or post sunset) sky with a few dramatically lit clouds. At the right side is the silhouette of a horse's head, and it could be the idyllic view of a solitary ride if it were not for the movie spotlight and the technician standing beside it that we find at second glance...

23 November#6 roadkill again... with the rear lights of of cars blurring in the background (at least now I know what VM did on my birthday last year - I had been wondering)

Hindsight#79 view of the teepee village, but this time in colour, with campfires under an overcast sky and people moving. Still the sense of times past, but with not such a deep melancholy as the b+w ones

And then what I eventually felt to be my favourite photos - three of the Mielo series. Big prints, colours in layers, shifting and blurring. We asked Pilar Perez for the meaning of "Mielo", and she replied, " In Lakota, it means "It is I" and is from a Ghost dance song." In the photos Mielo#11, 4, and 9 you see figures moving, and a lot of empty space, the feeling of wide plains, deep memories. They are the kind of pictures you can stare at for a long time because they leave a lot to you, to decide what you see, and how you see it. They are beyond photography (can you tell I was impressed?)

Retreat#4 two riders wearing turbans and behind them a dramatically orange and blue sky - actually it is more an abstract though, with strong shapes and colours

Retreat#9 a paint horse's head as seen from the rider, lit by flash, thus giving it light and colour, with a background of a night sky with the last remnants of a sunset (or sunrise). This description doesn't do it any justice though - it has some magical qualities that require a better pen than mine to be evoked - just go and see it.

Ride#31 blurry layers of soft orange and other warm colours, riders passing in front of a bright light

Ride#46 a single rider silhouetted against a rose glow, a palm tree looking almost like fireworks in the artificial light

Ride#71 neck, ear and mane of a paint horse (which of course is the one "playing" Hidalgo), a hand on the reins, and on the ground visible the shadow of horse and rider. A beautiful shot, close up and long shot in one.

Ride#28 the head of the horse, not much more than the eye actually, seen in front of a river under an orange sky.

Topanga#24 a circular picture again, something like seen by an ant, parts of a plant/tree up close, more branches further up , and over it the sky.

Cheyenne River#3 almost startling in its clear colours, and its details in sharp focus. Again shot from ground level, but this time the eye goes to the horizon, not up into the sky. Colours of autumn.

Hindsight#84 a dreamily beautiful landscape, bare trees, snow, a blue sky, hazy ground

Nearly#5 close up of leaves, with the light shining through them, b+w and quite abstract

Nearly#4 a similar shot, leaves and light criss crossing the picture within the boundaries of the circle

Vor#5 (vor = icelandic for spring) one of my favourites - the circle is filled with the blurry image of the sky overhead, a few branches on the edge of the picture, and a flock of birds rising out of them

Hindsight#22+21 two circular b+w of a snow encrusted ground with leaves, and the long shadows of bare trees falling over it. They both work fine as abstracts, too.

Erfoud#15 another close up of leaves, this time in colour, the strong light dissolving the reality

Erfoud#14 dusky pink roses with a sky of intense blue and a silhouette of a palm tree behind them - a weird shot with absolutely otherworldly light

Erfoud#17 the ant perspective again, this time with flowers (bougainvillea? I have known to be wrong...) on the fringes of the circle, a cloudless blue sky, and the glare of the sun

Erfoud#16 (on the cover of Un Hueco en el Sol)

Hindsight#81 reddish light from a low sun lighting bare trees before a cloudless blue sky. The contrast of the warm colours and the cold feeling is weird and intriguing

Ride#53/54 overlapping frames of circular pictures, one of the shadows of three horses and two men on the ground, positioned almost like hands on a clock, converging in the center of the circle, the other a close up of a horse's mane, almost orange. A strong and very abstract double image.

Rachid's#5 two overlapping frames, the one of Viggo's jaw, mouth, neck, the other of a man stroking a cat. b+w, mysterious.

There are three pictures in the catalogue that didn't make it into the exhibition:

Blue#4, from Hole in the sun

There#3 a b+w self portrait (again only mouth, part of his Frank Hopkins costume) and the partly visible horse with saddle

Hindsight#9 a view out of a teepee, with a woman in American Native traditional costume, photographing the photographer

THE READING

After leaving Brandts we got in line for the reading. It was another hot day, so everybody was grateful for the growing strip of shadow alongside the wall of Magasinet. We were lucky to be such a big group, as we could walk off for a while and then return to the line. Perhaps the fact that we were the first in line and were so many caused irritation, or it was that we had made ourselves at home, including jewelry workshop - we received a few strange vibes from other people in the line. I regret that, as we all were there for the same reason, but there was not much we could do about it as we were not sure what caused it. Unfortunately people soon joined the line from both sides, which was not such a good idea.

 
Waiting in the line

We had been watching through the glass door as the museum staff set up tables in the foyer, stacking some 300 personalized tickets (the flyer again), briefing security. When the door finally was supposed to open there was a little hiccup because it was stuck, but they managed to free it, and of course the dreaded pushing set in, from both sides of the line. But security let in only a handful at a time, so it worked out eventually.

People went upstairs into the bar/café leading to the entrance of the auditorium, and there we were stuck for quite a while, maybe the only slip in the otherwise excellently organized events. It ended with a hot stuffy room full of people thronging in front of the doors to the auditorium, so when we finally were allowed in there was some serious pushing again. It had to be expected, as only a few lucky ones had reserved seats in the five front rows, and the rest was eager to get as close to the stage as possible.

The place filled up quickly. The air was thick to begin with and of course got worse soon, with more than 300 people inside, and a hot day outside. The open doors didn't help much because on one side they were only leading out onto a staircase, and only when somebody opened the downstairs door leading onto the street there was a little bit of fresh air coming in. Soon the flyers came into use as fans again.

The red curtain across the stage was drawn, and there was a mike stand to one side in front of it. At about 17:15 Lis Steincke, the curator, stepped up to the mike and gave a short introduction, while behind her the curtain opened to show a small table center stage, with pink roses, a few books and notes, bottled water and mate cup, a mike, and Viggo. Black jeans, dark long sleeved sweat shirt and over it a "war is not the answer" T-shirt, bare feet. Of course there was a barrage of flashlights going off, which resulted in Lis' total confusion. Viggo was unfolding a big UN flag and covered the table with it, and then he bit off one of the roses, hid it behind his back and walked over to Lis Steincke. When she had ended her introduction, asking for all electronic equipment to be shut off during the reading, he presented her with the rose and gave her a hug.

 
Listening to Lis Steincke's introduction

Viggo sat down, and started the reading by saying a few words about his reading in Danish, saying, "For those of you who understand Danish ­ you might not understand mine." When talking about the Danish translation of his poems for Nye Falsknerier he asked the translator, who was sitting in the audience, to please stand up, and thanked him for his work.

The first poem he read (in Danish) was Cuttings. I guess that most of the audience was not Danish, and those who were were maybe not familiar with the poem ­ there was that slightly uncomfortable pause when the poem was over, but nobody was quite sure if it was. Viggo shrugged and laughed a little, looked at the translator and joked, "This was not what I meant." He then continued with Stones, Matinée and Nebraska - all of them in Danish. I could see his bare feet under the flag - whenever he was speaking or reading Danish he was moving his feet like they were the outlet for his nerves. Then he read a poem by Søren Ulrik Thomsen and said that he wanted to read it because he likes it (all this in Danish too).

 
Reading Nye Falsknerier

I have to mention that contrary to the day before at the opening it was no problem to hear him - he was taking care to speak into the mike, and it had been installed by somebody who knew his trade, so thank you to the unknown sound engineer Shuffling his books and notes he stated, "I have some order actually ­ let's see how long it lasts." Followed in Danish Edit, Lunch ("her version"), Lead which he introduced by talking about the time he worked at a factory in Glostrup in Denmark at age 20. He dedicated it to all Danish metal workers. He then read a couple of Danish haiku.

The next text he picked up from the table was a hand written page where the writing was covering the whole paper, sneaking around the corners, leaving hardly any of it free. He started reading in Englsih and it was Back to Babylon. He read it with strong emotion, ended it, looked a little confused for a second and then said that he had left out a line.

  
Reading Back to Babylon

Then he sang an Argentinian song, Silencio. He sang a capella of course, and the room was suddenly very quiet. I know that a lot of people had a lot of doubts about whether or not he can sing - well, he can. It was hauntingly beautiful, and even though hardly anyone will have been able to understand the words we heard the deep emotion of the song. (the text can be found www.planet-tango.com

 
Singing Silencio

He made several anti war statements, and then he talked about New Zealand, praising the country and the people. He read several poems by the following New Zealand poets (I hope I got the names right, sorry if not): Jeanette Stayes Camera, Gregory O'Brien, Bob Orr, M. K. Joseph, James K. Baxter.

Then he dedicated Fossils to all the people of Afghanistan and Iraq and read it, followed by Hillside and Mermaids - this last one in Danish. This ended the reading, and while everybody was applauding he picked up his camera, walked closer to the edge of the stage and took a picture of the audience, moving his camera (lots of interesting streaky flashlights I bet). Then he went to sit at the table again, and the signing started.

Reading from Coincidence of Memory

Shooting back

THE BOOKSIGNING

It had been established earlier that those sitting in the back were supposed to go up on stage to have their books signed first. We had been asked to take two slips of paper, write on it what we wanted Viggo to write, and not to ask for having more than two items signed. It was very soon obvious that hardly anybody stuck to that, and also that Viggo didn't refuse to sign anything. We were in for a long wait, because the line advanced only slowly, and we were sitting in the fifth row.

Soon there was a pile of presents on the table and on the floor, and Viggo offered some of the chocolate he had been given. At one point a woman looked at the chocolate and declined, saying something that made him look surprised. Although he was eating from the chocolate too, he obviously hadn't yet tried that particular box. He took one, had a small bite, looked extremely dubious, and put the box away, opening another one.

He had drained a bottle of water right after the reading, and had beer and later wine while he kept signing. He was concentrating on the person on stage, hardly ever looking into the audience (perhaps the prospect of all those people with all those books and expectations was too daunting to dwell on). There were a few security people on stage and in the aisles, but they didn't have much to do. A few things happened to break the routine though:

There was a man who had a big LOTR tattoo covering his entire back, and he had Viggo sign it (we later read in a newspaper that he had him sign it in indelible ink to have it tattooed too). A woman said something to him about the "War is not the answer" T-shirt, and he took it off, signed it and gave it to her. I later saw that the sweat shirt he wore had Lord of the Rings / stunt team on it.

There was a blonde toddler whose mom let him run around on the stage for a while, and at some point he walked up to the table, and Viggo presented him with some chocolate, which earned him a big surprised stare. Then Viggo took a piece of chocolate himself and demonstrated how to take a bite and eat it, but the baby just wandered off, chocolate in hand ­ only to turn round a moment later and take a bite, and then run back to his mom. Viggo kept signing, he signed books, posters, flyers, bellies and arms Quite a few ladies had no compunction about asking for a kiss, and received one, some kind of Kiss On Demand thing which I found really intrusive.

We were not really happy about the music that was being played over the speakers, but later somebody said that Viggo had picked it - maybe it was helping him to stay awake. He was looking really tired after a few hours, he never left the stage, he didn't have a break of any kind. The signing went on for more than five hours, and as we were among the last ones to go up on the stage we could see that he was really exhausted, but still he tried to be as attentive as he could.

EPILOGUE

We went to see the exhibition one more time on sunday, and while we were there Pilar Perez came in. She talked with a few people and said that Viggo was there. She came back a moment later to say that he was still feeling really drained and would appreciate it if people would let him do what he had come for (something with Sueño del Retiro, and picking up a picture that hadn't made it into the show) and leave him alone. Inspite of this there were several people who pounced on him, and he left.

Somehow the four days were over far too soon, and we had to say good bye to people who have become far more than just women we know from a message board. I will go back to Odense later this summer with friends to see the exhibition again, and the reading was a beautiful experience. I am not sure if I want to go to a signing again, but I would not miss the Odense Experience for anything.

Thank you to Candy who wrote down which poems Viggo read and a synopsis of what he talked about when speaking Danish, to Naja for asking about Mielo, to Betty for the link for Silencio, and to Daz for the tickets.
A big Thank You to the staff of Museet for Fotokunst in Odense who made this possible and were kind and helpful through all of it, and thank you to Viggo Mortensen for being who he is.

Text by Mackie/The Farthest Outpost