When Spike Jonze Met Björk: A New Show at Arroz & Fun in LA Gathers Never-Before-Seen Images of the Icelandic Icon

For readers of a certain age, seeing the names Björk and Spike Jonze together immediately brings to mind the musician’s video for 1995’s “It’s Oh So Quiet,” which was on heavy rotation on MTV. The two would go on to collaborate two more times, for 2002’s “It’s in Our Hands” and 2005’s “Triumph of a Heart,” but their first one will forever be one of the greatest videos of the 1990s. 

Creative director and restaurateur Humberto Leon was in college when he first saw “It’s Oh So Quiet” on television. “It was so happy and joyful yet weird and strange—everything I love in one,” he recalled. Leon has since become friends and frequently collaborated with Jonze and was one day helping him organize his archives when he came across a box of Björk outtakes. Immediately he knew he needed to set up an exhibition with the images. The Day I Met Björk, opening February 15 at Arroz & Fun, collects images from a shoot commissioned by the now defunct Detour Magazine taken over a day at the Chateau Marmont. They capture a young artist simultaneously at ease with herself and supremely confident, but they’re also gorgeous and dreamy. Below, read an excerpt from a conversation between Jonze and Leon, published in a zine (available for download on WeTransfer) on the occasion of the exhibition.

Humberto Leon: Can you tell me about the day you met Björk?

Spike Jonze: I loved her first album, “Debut,” and I’d done videos, but they weren’t that far out of my world—Beastie Boys, Weezer, Dinosaur Jr., or R.E.M. So this was very exciting to get to do a Björk video. They sent me four songs from “Post,” which were all incredible. The idea that came the quickest was for “It’s Oh So Quiet.” And then I had a call with her, and we just talked, and I told her the idea, and she said, “I love it.” And I was like, “Well, do you have any tweaks, anything you want to do?” And she’s like, “I just want to wear an orange dress.” My reaction was, “Okay, perfect.” And that was it. It was so easy and fun, and she was just the warmest, up for anything. But I could also tell she had a very clear point of view on who she was, what she wanted to do, and who she wanted to work with, and I was very, very honored to be somebody that she wanted to work with. Then I didn’t see her, we didn’t talk for a couple months, and I started prepping it and putting it all together and scouting it and working on the choreography and all that stuff. And then she came to town, and Detour Magazine asked, “Hey, we want to shoot photos of Björk for an interview.” So the day she got in town, I went to the Chateau Marmont, where she was staying. And it’s funny because the Chateau is now something else....

Leon: I think it’s a place where people like to be seen. It has a clout to it. But I think back then there was so much mystique to it. And it wasn’t anything. It wasn’t a thing.

Jonze: The people we knew, that we were friends with, would want to stay there, but it wasn’t expensive. It was probably still pretty rundown then, but it wasn’t crowded. You would run into people there, and it was really fun, but it was just less precious or pretentious. Also you could kind of do anything there. We just went down to the pool and shot photos for two hours, and nobody cared.

Leon: Was it the beginning of the day when you’re in her room and she’s in that orange outfit drinking coffee?

Jonze: Yeah, probably. And then walked around the garden and ended up at the pool. And Casey [Storm, a costume designer] just had a duffel bag of clothes, so it was just me, Casey, and our other friend Scott, who was my photo assistant and helped me with the whole underwater housing. But it wasn’t a big production in any way. And when I look back, I’m like, How did we shoot that many photos in two, three hours, maybe? As soon as I met her, it was instantly natural. But before that I thought she was sort of mythical or you don’t know who she is. She’s this mystery from another dimension or something. And then as soon as I met her, I was like, Oh, no, she’s just this awesome Icelandic girl from a punk band. And she’s from that scene, and I’m from this scene, but they’re the same scenes, just from different cities. That’s why she was so down. She didn’t have any entourage. She didn’t have a publicist. She didn’t have a hair and makeup person. I was like, Oh, okay. We’re just going to make something together. Our friendship still sort of meets at that place. She’s just this Icelandic punk who probably can drink a lot more vodka than, well...definitely can drink a lot more vodka than I could.

Leon: She’s otherworldly.

Jonze: So otherworldly, yeah. She was just roaming around the Chateau. If you’re at any other fancy hotel nowadays, within five minutes of shooting photos, the security would be there. And nobody cared at this time. I don’t even know if they even had a security guard.

Leon: Some of my favorite photos are the ones of her going down the hallway and then kind of peeking her head back, and you see these random body parts going up and down the hallway through the door. I feel like looking at all the contact sheets, I live through the day with you and her because I saw the sequence of the day. It’s almost like you were just like, “Throw that blanket over your body and jump on the bed.” And she was like, “Sure.” There’s one of her really close-up with this blanket around her face, and it’s shot so beautifully in black and white.

Jonze: I’ve never really gone back to look at them. When I think about them, I think about how I got to capture her at this moment right before that album blew up. It catapulted her into this other world, this new life. But it’s very easy to shoot photos of someone when they’re compelling, when they’re imaginative, when they lack any self-consciousness, and when they’re as singular and original as her. Really, I almost can’t even take credit for any photos being good because they’re just.... I think sometimes if you’re shooting photos of someone who doesn’t know how to be in front of the camera or play or just create something with you, then it’s hard. But this was just her. Just point the camera at her, and she’s compelling.