Where Martin Schoeller seems to excel is in the disclosure of reptilian celebrity, the hollow, endless need. It remains difficult to tell though if this is genuinely a facet of his work or a value of that uniquely modern state, which allows whole identities to become volatile, something merely to be traded upon, so that the supposed “disclosure” we see in this work, the firm impression of presence, is in itself just another part of the ruse. He is complicit in the traffic of individual-as-product, but of course we all are, it is a kind of social illusion, fame’s own commodity value. Perhaps that doesn’t even matter, not anymore. In looking there is no way you cannot be implicated and Schoeller realises this. There is a certain grotesque fascination to be had from it, the spectacle, and a forced intimacy with the plastic expanse of each face. The factuality of this picture (and all of his work) would have us believe it is about appearance – placement in the market does that too – but really what I see in this is the failure of representation to account for subjective experience, for other people, each being their own language, a closed text. He doesn’t allow for translations, the faces are not legible. Instead these blank spaces are filled by the slip-stream of culture, by longing, by desire – and yes, by the snake-oil editors of glossy magazines, let’s not be naive. But in stripping away all the product endorsements, internet notoriety or whatever else, the individual remains, dense and complicated as ever, if in no way admirable. The solidity of his pictures often seems to mock the idea that fame somehow absolves a person of humanity and its burdens. There’s something brutally physical about them, the hidden architecture of each skull imposes itself on the outward mask. This is indeed work about its time, our hierarchies and values, and yet does not seem so much of it. Of course, the fact that his services are for hire to some very high-profile clients goes a long way toward obscuring what is most interesting here, as does the very notion of celebrity itself. That is the devil’s bargain of actually making these pictures. Regardless, his style is one to be reckoned with and the work rewards a deeper consideration than it might receive as mere illustrative fodder.
Find an extensive selection (including his female body-builder series) here.
