Björk on postmodernism

From a recent interview: "I like to have very Icelandic things, and be very, very Icelandic and feel this kind of authenticity of Iceland run through me or hopefully through my work. At the same time, I want to be part of the conversation that’s happening in 2022. And to be a global musician. I think it’s dangerous when people are making music or culture that’s about roots. It isolates [the music] into some sort of a museum idea, where it just becomes a monument of something that passed a long time ago. I do try to be vibrant and try to be part of the current conversation. Because I feel you can have one foot in the roots and connected to your roots and the other foot in whatever year that is going on at the moment."

Huge Bjork fan and I have never seen this before - thank you for uploading this clip, Sasa!

All the best artists have a deep appreciation of humanity's past, and the worst ones just want to replace it.

“All the modern things have always existed”

This makes total sense with her new album Fossora.

Bjork is one of the coolest people alive.

Based Björk.

The past can’t be erased, we must learn from it.

She means and understands what she's saying. You can tell from her work.

Beautiful. So happy to hear this from such a successful artist.

Thank-you for summarizing my thoughts so effortlessly Bjork.

I love any good artist who has a hard-set firm opinion about their art, no matter who it pisses off.

I don't think postmodernism is necessarily reducible to a Warhol-esque glorification of pop modernity. In fact, I think a postmodern reading of Warhol might be that his work isn't glorifying its subject matter, but rather highlighting the absurdity of our modern relationship to these modern icons. That doesn't mean we have to abandon the past; rather, it means we need to re-examine the basis of our relationship to all forms of iconography. Acknowledging the reality of our lived history isn't inherently antithetical to postmodernism, and I think many postmodernists would argue that it is the authenticity of the relationship with the subject matter, rather than anything inherent about the subject matter, that truly matters—which means that an authentic relationship with past myths is fully possible.

I like that she makes the distinction here between the fundamental symbology and modernity. As artists, I think that the more we indulge modernity without striking at the primal and irreducible components of existence, the more we stray into a deadened area of creativity. Those artists that successfully strike at something both crucial and primal and deliver that in a digestible form are the ones we should treasure in the modern day.

One of better videos i have seen on yt

I think that she is critiquing modernism more than post-modernism. I also think that Warhol was a bit ironic with his art. Part of the point of the soup cans is calling to an audience's attention that art exists everywhere, even the most mundane things, and that some of the most widely consumed art is absurd, mechanical, cynical, and focused on consumption. Warhol's art is about mythology in a way. It is about the contemporary celebrities, products, and ideologies, and my reading is that most of the time it is critical too (but maybe that is more-so my own projection). It is not about the mythology of 500 years ago, and it doesn't have to be. Both of these things can exist alongside each other and they are both important for different reasons.

Björk is now the best musician out there. I did not expect that, but it’s the case.

I love the way she speaks. Her music isn’t really within my tastes but there’s something strange and pure about her.

This is about pop art— not postmodernism. I don’t understand where this title comes from, probably some Jordan Peterson Stan that thinks every facet of newer academia that they dislike is postmodernist. The commodification of history is a byproduct of commercialization, the fetishization of capital, not post modernism.

I just found this video. Knew very little Bjork but I agree entirely with her, and with the title of this video. Thank you. I'm a fine artist and all I can say is that art has become self-referencing without a connection to what is common for the human condition regardless of the location or tradition. Art has become irrelevant and a mere entertainment for which the main role is in the hands of curators for assigning commercial value to it.