The Talks
Martin Schoeller: “I don’t think you can capture a soul”
Mr. Schoeller, what does honesty look like in portrait photography?
It starts with the facial expression that we associate with honesty. Obviously fake smiles don’t feel honest at all. People tend to associate a somber or serious expression to be more honest or less posed, though I do think that if somebody is all out laughing, it can be just as honest of a photograph. And then obviously not retouching photographs and not using any lighting tricks or weird angles or funky crazy colors — just to keep it very neutral. My lighting is very flat and doesn’t have any shadows, it’s not hiding anything, everybody is photographed from the same straight-on angle. I think that all helps to make a more honest feeling portrait.
Although your photos give that impression of honesty, you’ve also said that there’s actually no such thing as a completely honest portrait because the photographer’s subjectivity always comes into play.
And you know, so many times I’ve heard that I’m a soul catcher, that I really capture the soul of people but you know what? I don’t think you can capture a soul! This old idea of photographs really capturing all the elements and something deeper within the person, I always felt it was a little contrived. So I do think that all photographs lie! There’s no objective picture. A person is so multi-faceted that you can’t reduce them to a single perspective and say you captured everything about them. But then again, there are portrait photographs which are not about people at all.
“I think an ambition as a performer, and maybe even in life, is to become less afraid. Some boundaries are necessary of course and some are accepted, but the ones that I don’t want, I want to remove.”
“I really lacked confidence at the very beginning. At first I was quite intimidated! I wasn’t accepted in the kitchen initially, I wasn’t part of the system; the other chefs didn’t welcome me. But in the end, those experiences made all the difference. It freed me.”
“I think it’s so good to try new things and open the window and let some fresh air in and try to eliminate any regrets.”
“I have the freedom to express myself. And it doesn’t matter if somebody’s going to pay me or pat me on the back for it. I chose to do things that I embrace, that I feel passionate about for whatever reason and I create my freedom around that.”
“I’m trying to not play it safe. I learn more when I fail than when I succeed, so if I push myself to do something that’s really difficult, I could fail and I’ll learn a lot. But if I don’t fail, then I’ll be in a great movie. I hope to be the kind of actor that isn’t always great.”
“Each of my projects is kind of a marathon run. A lot of them won't make it to the finish line and the only reason they make it is because I go back and nurture them and try to figure everything out.”
“It’s been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to make the films I really dream of making. It’s heartbreaking when that happens, but it’s all okay. It requires patience.”
“The recognition of luck is extraordinarily important — as well as making the best of it and creating to the best of your capabilities on that one opportunity you’re given so that it doesn’t end up in the museum of errors.”
“I think the key to having a successful career is to find the thing you do well and do it again and again for the rest of your life. But I’m interested in expanding my language as an artist and as a composer. And I try to expand it with every project.”
“You don’t have to please everybody. As long as you and the people whose opinions you respect are comfortable and happy with it, then… keep going! Keep making that weird stuff.”
“Even though I wanted to be minimal, for the first 20 years in my career all I did was add things; more courses, more ingredients. Only three years ago I was confident to start focusing on removing, and this is when I finally created a dish where I felt like I achieved what I tried to do for 23 years.”
“I’m doing things more personally than ever before because that’s what my project is based on, that’s who I am and I have never been this happy my whole life — but it was a long road to get here.”
“Failure is just something you have to go through on your own. Nothing can prepare you for it, just like a broken heart. I thought about folding, but I’m not a quitter. I’m not going to quit.”
“Sometimes when you lose faith and you understand that something will never be possible the way that you dreamed, but you keep trying, suddenly one thing flips and everything re-accommodates. It totally flows. You don’t give up — and suddenly it’s almost a transcendental thing.”
“Architecture is the oddest profession. In the beginning you're very much involved in finding your voice and locating yourself artistically. For 25 years you're working with small projects, domestic projects. And then you mature at 50 and you're given your first projects.”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to stop wanting to see and experience things. I think the day that you don’t long for that anymore is the day you have kind of given up.”
“At what point do you feel you’ve achieved it and you can move on? I think you usually have to start thinking, ‘So what’s next?’”
“Wherever any of us have been wounded, if we dive into what those wounds are, if we go down into and do the hard work within those wounds, we’ll actually find ourselves, we’ll find our real giftedness, a sincere, true giftedness.”
“You’re always looking for a second chance. You’re always looking to do a little bit better than you did the last time. And you hope that the readers will stay with you.”
“To be an artist, you must start with a considerable drive; in my case it was a fierce madness, a wildness. I think that’s the mark of an artist, actually, that they are rebellious, unruly… And I was one of them myself.”
“If you work with somebody for a long time, you have to challenge them otherwise you jeopardize your relationship. You have to constantly reinterpret your work together and provide a new vision of your relationship.”
“I think you have to slow down a little bit. But I am just trying to make work; I am just out there making work. I take care of myself so that I can survive. I used to not take care of myself so well, but now I do.”
“I have an irrational fear of boredom. That’s why I now have this tattoo that says “Carpe Diem.” That’s what we should live by!”
“I don’t want to be pigeonholed — it’s important to keep evolving, experimenting and reinventing yourself, otherwise it’s like hitting a drum, the same note over and over again. I think you should want to change, to try different things.”
“I think the final circle in being an artist is connecting, making some conversation to the world you’re in. I think if you have that feeling of why you need to do something, you’ll find a way. And I think that really takes you forward! If you’re feeling that, maybe other people need that to.”
“It’s important to say no – especially earlier in your career – because life is short and you want to be proud of things that you have done, not ashamed of them.”
“When I was younger I had these moments where I was surprising myself with my spontaneity, and I thought, ‘This is what you should be chasing.’ The cerebral part of acting and the perfectionism can be exhausting, but the spontaneity can be very joyful.”
“I think every person who is curious is more fascinating, and exploration is a big part of that. If you know everything in advance, if you're too self-confident, then everything will stop at some point.”
“I used to tease the other kids because I played better than them. Then my father said, ‘Come here. Don’t do this with the kids, because God gave you the gift to play football. You didn’t do anything. You have to respect people, be a good person. From now on, you must be this example.’”
“I follow the beat of my own drum. I think I’ve gotten more confident and self-trustful in my ability and my natural appetite for play, and not over-adorning it with anything. I’ve always been disciplined and I’m still nothing if not conscientious.”
“I was a soldier in Korea and I got into a situation where I knew I was going to die. The rest of my life I have lived every bloody moment from the moment I wake up until the time I go to sleep.”
“As I began to take risks, leaving my very comfortable and secure job and taking this first leap into fashion, every subsequent risk became easier to take because I began to see the kind of opportunity and excitement that risk-taking offered.”
“I don’t want to only do what I know how to do. I want to be pushed somewhere else.”
“The more experience you have, the more time you’ve spent on this earth, the more regrets you accumulate. It’s normal. You can’t do everything right, nobody’s perfect. But if you think too much about that, you’re not here. You have to make some efforts to stay open-minded.”
“I have a tattoo that goes around my right wrist that looks like barbed wire, but it’s actually ANDAND linked together, which stands for “A New Dawn, A New Day.” It’s about waking up every day knowing that you have a chance to start again and forgive and be forgiven and to let go of yesterday.”
“I was always trying to innovate; I don’t like repetition. Time is something that changes every moment, it’s never repetitive — I try to follow this example.”
“My whole purpose in life is to communicate what I’m doing. I see myself as a modern nomad and a soldier at the same time. Being mainstream won’t change me because once I have something to perform, a task, then I’m a soldier. And I’ve always been a soldier.”
“In your life there’s a moment when the door opens and you need to walk through the door then. You can’t say then, “Well, I’ll go through it two years from now. I’ll do it, I’ll save up some money...” Because by then the door will be closed.”
“I feel very lucky. There is luck behind me, there’s luck in front of me, there’s luck ahead of me. But that is a perspective that requires a lot of work. It doesn’t come naturally.”
“I never thought of art as a career. I thought it was more like a monastic practice. It is something that you do – you can't not do it. If I made money doing it, I would do it; if I didn't make any money, I would do it. Obviously I’m not perfect but the thing I am best at is painting.”
Armando Iannucci: “There are no rules anymore”
Mr. Iannucci, I couldn’t help but notice that your films tend to be set in the past, and your most recent television series was set in the future…
Yes! Am I running away from the present? (Laughs)
That’s what I was going to ask. Is the world right now too surreal for you?
Well, it’s a number of things. I’ve done about 10 years of very, very contemporary political comedy, and so inevitably after that you want to do something different. But I also thought that what is happening in the world is so surreal! There are no conventions or rules anymore, Trump has literally said, “I could shoot someone in the face in the middle of 5th Avenue and get elected.” Or now, in the middle of a pandemic, people are anti-science, and somehow someone surviving the disease is a political choice rather than a medical choice. It’s so in another world that I felt that the only way I can make any kind of statement or come up with a work that is looking at the present, is by doing it through the medium of another time or another world.
