Jónsi: Vox (Capsule Review)

[Original publication: No Proscenium, 11/22/23]

I was unprepared.

The curtain was standard theatre: black, velvet, heavy. I first heard the shrouded sounds from across the room, but the vocalizations had no recognizable shape or meaning; from the outside there was nothing exactly identifiable. I pushed through the fabric and my mind went blank.

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Inside was Vox. It’s one of three installations by Jónsi, best known as the lead singer of the Icelandic rock band Sigur Rós. Vox is the anchor piece of his latest show of the same name at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. All three installations are hybrid works of sound and vibrational sculpture, with the addition of light and scent for Vox. Similar to Jónsi’s previous show in Los Angeles, these artworks apply visceral pressure. Vox in particular emerges as a raw, compressed hallucination somehow both primordial and preternatural. Sitting inside I rode waves of elation and rage. It was a sensory montage of a place beyond cognition.

The gallery describes Jónsi’s work as “immersive installations that reconfigure the act of listening by means of sight, smell, taste, and touch.” That reconfiguring is a tactile event; it’s a palpable rearrangement of the senses. I felt as though I could hear through my mouth and smell through my skin. The artworks’ tonal palettes include “ambient sounds, mechanically generated frequencies, samples from nature, as well as [Jónsi’s] own voice.” Vox also employs a “perfume organ.” The scents are subtle and have a familiarity that’s just out of reach, like the phantom pain of an unrecallable dream.

When I left the gallery I felt incredible, overwhelming… relief. Not relief from the art, but because of it. The experience of expertly crafted, utter sensation — without the deadweight of overintellectualization — was a complete respite. Vox is pure alchemy.

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Online Viewing Room available here.