Interview: Martin Schoeller at Fotografiska New York Re-Opening
Juan Melendez, 2019, video and sound installation, 16:31 minutes.
© Martin Schoeller
The Stockholm-based photography museum Fotografiska re-opened their New York location on August 28. The museum originally opened this location in December 2019 and has five captivating exhibits currently on display, including works by Cooper & Gorfer, Julie Blackmon, Naima Green and a group exhibition in collaboration with Vice Media.
Another one of the artists featured in Fotografiska’s re-opening is Martin Schoeller, a renowned photographer known for his intimate and striking portraits of people, from celebrities to holocaust survivors, and, in his most recent exhibit, death row exonorees. I was privileged enough to sit down with Martin in the museum’s light-flooded, cozy sixth-floor lounge and ask him some questions about his exhibit.
Perry Cobb, 2019, video and sound installation, 17:08 minutes
© Martin Schoeller
When we first sat down, however, Martin had some questions for me. I told him I had just seen the exhibit, and he was curious about my experience walking through the display. The exhibit consisted of ten video portraits of death row exonorees. Their portraits were displayed on large, bright screens with a speaker beside them playing a recording of the exonoree telling their story. I told Martin how brilliant I thought the set-up was. Walking through the hallways, I could sometimes barely see a few feet in front of me because of how pitch-black everything was. The museum installed sound-proofing boards along the halls to isolate the sounds of the exonerees’ voices. The atmosphere was almost claustrophobic and enclosing, denoting the atmosphere inside tiny prison cells.
I asked Martin what inspired him to create this meaningful project. He told me, “I always pick subject matter that really moves me, oftentimes things I’ve thought about since I was a teenager. Death row has always been something that, coming from Germany, I have a hard time understanding.” He said he didn’t know what he should do at first and faced several difficulties getting the project on its feet. “I went to some events they had,” he explained about Witness To Innocence (WTI), the organization made up of death row exonerees of whom he took the portraits of. “They were very reluctant at first, since they get a lot of requests from outsiders…a lot of people that start questioning their innocence…and some of them have PTSD from being in prison for so many years for a crime they did not commit…It’s a very delicate group of people.”
Gary Drinkhard, 2019, video and sound installation, 16:31 minutes.
© Martin Schoeller
He told me that the director of the program, Kirk Bloodsworth, was hesitant to participate and “didn’t want these mugshots taken!” Martin explained, “then I showed him my book, and he was flipping through my book, and he said, ‘well, they’re not mugshots, okay, actually they have a lot of humanity.’” After much persistence and perseverance on Martin’s part, he convinced the exonerees to sit and talk with him.
Martin’s curiosity about my experience walking through the show reflects the level of commitment he dedicates to his projects. He cares about his audience’s perspective and remains involved in the lives of his subjects even after the piece is finished. In fact, he paid a visit to several of the exonerees after the exhibit went up.
When I asked about the process of interviewing the exonerees, Martin explained, “I had them come to my hotel room, just me and, at the other end of the room, my assistant with headphones making sure that the sound was good, and it was just like hanging out with them…it was very emotional.”
The exhibition runs until January 10, 2021.
You can see more of Martin Schoeller’s work here.
