Face to Face: Barack Obama portrait
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Anne Goodyear: I'm gonna start this evening's conversation by making some observations about Schoeller and this photograph. And then I must say I really look forward to opening the floor to discussion and hearing your thoughts and comments and questions about this image and perhaps more broadly about the phenomenon of -- the larger phenomenon of portraiture of Barack Obama.
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As Frank Goodyear, my husband, mentioned in his introduction, Martin Schoeller is one of six photographers who is represented in this series, in this exhibition featured photography. We are very fortunate that he's already represented in our collection.
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We have portraits of Andre Agassi and Lance Armstrong that have a similar close-up format. And indeed, Shoeller's best known style I would say is this close-up -- is this close-up style. You'll see a little variation on this imagery in the hallway with his two recent photographs of female bodybuilders, but by and large Shoeller has made his career as a photographer who crosses the boundary between editorial work and fine art photography.
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And the works that you see gathered around you in this particular gallery are images that he made because of news stories that were published in the pages of the New Yorker, the pages of Entertainment Weekly, the pages of Men's Vogue, or in this case of the portrait of Barack Obama, published in the pages of GQ or Gentlemen's Quarterly magazine.
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And in fact, this is a photograph that was a variant of the image that was actually published in GQ, and I thought it might be sort of fun and interesting to show you a copy of, of the image that actually was included.
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Martin's skill as a photographer is very widely noted and his contract with the New Yorker magazine obviously allows him to work for certain other publications. It also means that when he goes on location to shoot a subject he has some latitude to making imagines that may eventually feature in a fine art installation such as this one.
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He's working with a large format-- large format camera, which enables him to get images that are of sufficient quality that they can stand being blown up to an extraordinary large, an extraordinary large scale. Well, it's fun for me to be speaking in front of this image for a number of different reasons. I think that we can all agree that we are on the precipice of an enormous transformation in our country. There's no question that Barack Obama will have a historic presidency.
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We don't know exactly how it will unfold yet but we already know that we are in extraordinary economic times. We know that we are in the midst of a war. There's a lot of debate about the best way to resolve that conflict, and of course, Barack Obama also has reached the milestone of being the first African American to be elected to the presidency of the United States.
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And I must say that I think that is a momentous and very exciting accomplishment. This image, however, was not originally an image of Barack Obama, the president-elect. It was not even a portrait of Barack Obama, the presidential candidate.
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It was instead an image that was made in the summer of 2004 after Barack Obama gave a sensational address to the Democratic National Convention. And I, I must say, upon further reflection, I find it really interesting today in December 2008 to look back on the pages of a magazine that appeared in December 2004, exactly four years ago.
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And I think it's really sort of fun to see the contrast between the image that the editors thought was most appropriate to represent this up and coming senator from Illinois. It's a very engaging image. He's smiling, I think that in a sense he's perhaps inviting us to get to know him a little bit better.
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I should mention that one thing about being a subject for a photograph to be published in a magazine and the photographer of that image is that you often don't have editorial control. I suspect that Martin Shoeller didn't know what image the editors would choose.
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I'll have to ask him sometime. In fact, he is planning to come back and speak and that date has not yet been determined but we will be sure to get the word out. But I'd love to know what Martin thought would be published in December of 2004. I actually did not come into contact with this image in December of 2004. I came into contact with this photograph for the first time in the spring of 2007.
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I was in New York for a photography fair that happens annually. It's an opportunity for photo dealers to showcase their wares, and I have to admit that this photograph literally stopped me in my tracks. I just froze on the spot and I thought that is an image that belongs to the National Portrait Gallery.
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One of our goals, and sometimes it's a challenge, is to find -- to find portrait of individuals whose historical significance is obvious and who are the subject of really interesting portraits. And sometimes we-- sometimes that can be a tricky balance to find. But it did strike me that that balance existed with this image.
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And I think one of the things that struck me as I look back in retrospect is the power of that countenance. It's a really strong image of a very strong person. And it strikes me looking back on the spring of 2007 that it was already shaping in my mind and I think the minds of many fellow Americans that Barack Obama was going to have a very special career, and that maybe there's even some possibility that he would run for the presidency.
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And so what interests me about this image and Barack Obama, or rather, Martin Shoeller's selection of it to represent Barack Obama is that I think it represents the transformation, the political transformation of his career. He's gone from being a smiling engaging newcomer to a politician invested with gravitas and the type of gravitas that we associate with great leaders.
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Shoeller talks about the fact that when he makes his photographs, these close-up images, he wants deliberately to strip his subjects of the typical environmental cues that are almost always around us when we encounter people. We usually can see the jackets they are wearing or the room that they are standing in, and that inevitably help us to shape certain ideas about who we are looking at.
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But despite the fact that Shoeller in a senses has stripped all of that away, it's still really obvious that he is wearing a jacket and a tie and this is somebody who takes the photographer seriously and who himself wishes to be taken seriously.
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It's interesting to me to ask myself what would Barack Obama look like if he were photographed today in this fashion. And I begun to notice that there's a little bit of grey hair appearing [[laughter from the audience]], umm you know, he's obviously been going very very hard. And I wonder to what degree our image of this senator who already in 2004 appeared to be having such an aspiring -- aspiring to have such an important career will in turn be shaped in the coming four years, maybe the coming eight years. We'll wait and see.
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And this--this give and take between the way in which political events influence our reading of portraiture and the way in which portraiture influences our interpretation of coming events, I find to be so intriguing. And it does strike me that with this particular portrait we really have a wonderful opportunity to investigate that sort of relationship.
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Anne Goodyear: That's a little introduction to my interest in this image. But I'm so struck by the fact that so many people have turned out to see it and to learn more about it that I'd be really thrilled to hear your feedback and to hear the impression that this image makes on you.
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Are there questions or comments? Yes.
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{Audience #1} What strikes me most about the portrait, is just the symmetry I...
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Anne Goodyear: Uh huh {Audience #1} Perfect symmetry.
Anne Goodyear: Yes.
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{Audience #1} Which...which spells balance, everything is just perfectly balanced. Every line on his cheek, his eyebrows, the ears, even the reflection of his eyes.
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Anne Goodyear: Mhmm.
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{Audience #1} It's...It's just perfect compared to [[McKay?]] for instance.
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Anne Goodyear: Mhm {Audeince #1} Now you can see a big difference in terms of the symmetry. It's just beautiful symmetry on the face.
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Anne Goodyear: Absolutely I think that's a wonderful... I think it's a wonderful observation. And the question to which the photographer has influenced that with his.. with the composition. It's a wonderful comment! Thank you.
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{Audience #2} Uh to me I uh I it strikes me that actually what we invest in the photo is perhaps more important than what comes out of the person, because I don't know that Barack Obama seems any more, has more gravitas than one of the portraits on the back wall of..of
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Anne Goodyear: Mhm.
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{Audience #2} Men who are
Anne Goodyear: Yes.
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{Audience #2} Also very serious and... and that particularly the one on the, in the middle on the right
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Anne Goodyear: Uh huh {Audience #2} Uh was not smiling at all so seems centered in himself and so on. To me it seems like this is partly a combination of the selection of the photographer and, we think this is a heavy dude. So tell me what, why this is, this does stick out that he is a heavy dude just on its own.
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Anne Goodyear: Well it's interesting I think that wonderful observation about the symmetrical composition of the image and even the shape of his head within the frame I think is very interesting.
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Anne Goodyear: Schoeller obviously is a contemporary photographer but I think he's very sensitive to the longer history of art.
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Anne Goodyear: I think it's also really interesting in this case that he's made the choice to blow the image up to this monumental scale. And actually I..I realized that there was a quotation that I..I wanted to share with you: a comment by Barack Obama that actually ran in the article in which his image was featured, and I think maybe its worth sharing with you because it almost seems as though Obama was commenting on the phenomenon of having himself photographed in this fashion.
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Anne Goodyear: He's in...so he said in 2004 "the reason you do this stuff is not to give a 15 minute speech, or to get your face in a magazine. There are l.. there are less painful and far more lucrative ways to do.. to be famous.
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Anne Goodyear: You do this stuff because you care about the epic struggle to make America what it can be. That's the only reason, the only thing that justifies being involved in politics."
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Anne Goodyear: And so actually maybe something else that strikes me about this image is that there doesn't seem, in this particular image, and maybe it actually differentiates it a little bit from the one that was published, there doesn't seem to me, to be a sense that Barack Obama is trying to please Schoeller, or that he's trying to pose in a fashion that is attractive or engaging.
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Anne Goodyear: It seems to me rather that there's a sense of Obama asking us to come from...come to him, and to unpack this image. But I-I think your question is an excellent one. I think your question is an excellent one. Thank you very much! Uh huh.
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Anne Goodyear: [[crosstalk]] That's- yes- UHuh. Right. UHUH. Yes. UHUH.
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Audience-1: ...given that one of things that he is most noted for is being a listener, his ears are are blurred.
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And so I find that to be very interesting, as well.
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And, uh, so I wondered why he does that. In contrast to McCain-- now McCain doesn't appear to have ears! [[laughter]]
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Anne Goodyear: [[crosstalk]] It-it's-- It's a great-- it's a great question.
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As far as I know he has ears, umm, but I
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I think it's a great- I think is a great question and I think it says a little bit, actually, about the artistry of Schoeller's photographs.
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Um, Martin Schoeller - um I, I should have mentioned, is a German-born photographer.
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And for those of you who are interested in the history of photography and the history of portraiture,
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you may also be familiar with the work of Thomas Struth and Thomas Ruff who are other Germans who create
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large-scale portraits that really zoom in on the face.
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And it's not entirely a coincidence that this group of photographers happens to be coming out of Germany.
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They all have in common, having been influenced by a couple by the name of Hilla and Bernd Becher,
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who are really known as minimal and conceptual artists,
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who are really building their careers during the '60s in Germany.
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And actually, the grid of images on the back wall gives you a little bit better idea of
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what Martin Schoeller was taking away from his engagement with the Bechers.
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They photographed architectural structures - they didn't actually photograph faces.
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But they made a practice of photographing every single architectural structure in the exact same format.
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And that's something that's important to Martin Schoeller -
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he's very, um, he is very emphatic about the fact that he is actually not a photographer of celebrities.
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And when he said that to me, I was actually quite surprised - because if you look around this room, you do see a lot of celebrities.
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And in fact the Pirahā people of Brazil were included, in part, at his insistence
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of the need to demonstrate he isn't only interested in famous faces.
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Now the Portrait Gallery - because of the way we're constructed in our desire to say something about American history
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through the accomplishments of people whose- who we can point to, in a historical narrative -
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makes these types of images appealing for this type of environment.
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But, Martin Schoeller wants to, in a sense, be very democratic in the approach that he takes to photography.
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And so I suspect that what we're seeing here - with the distinction between Obama and McCain, if we were to ask Martin Schoeller -
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is just the way that their particular faces happened to work within the parameters that he always uses for his pictures.
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And I, I think that Barack Obama's ears are out of focus because of the depth of field that the lens, that the lens had,
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and I just, I think it just happens that McCain's ears just, must be flatter against his head. But it is really interesting.
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And actually, I must say - one of the things that I find so revealing about the uniform approach to these images -
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is that I think it puts a premium on even really subtle aspects of expression.
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So, I think if I were just looking at the McCain, in isolation from everything,
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I would take it to be a relatively serious expression.
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But somehow, in conjunction with the image of Barack Obama, it almost seems to me that he's smiling.
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And I find that to be a really, sort of, surprising revelation.
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And in fact, one of the other things that I really like about Martin Schoeller
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is that he's an incredibly gregarious, engaging person - and I hope you all can come hear him speak, when he comes.
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He has the quality of putting people at their ease.
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And in that respect, he actually reminds me of Gilbert Stuart who was an 18th century painter, and
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who actually did the famous image of George Washington that made it onto the dollar bill.
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And, in fact, the original of that painting can be seen- of that image can be seen hanging in our Hall of Presidents.
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But, like Stuart, who is described by the people who sat for him as having been a wonderful person to spend time with,
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Schoeller goes out of his way to help his subjects feel at ease -
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playing music that they like - I guess, chatting with them - allowing them to engage in activities that they enjoy -
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he recently photographed Condoleezza Rice and let her play the piano during a session.
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And so, although the images are very uniform in their composition,
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one of the things that Schoeller, I think, is always reaching for, is a moment when -
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his subjects stop focusing on the camera -
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and stop trying to compose their faces for the camera -
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stop trying to do the sort of knee-jerk smiles, or other types of, things we do - really to protect ourselves.
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And it may be that that was why- that may be another reason that Schoeller himself
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clearly favored the more serious image over the image that was published in GQ.
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The photograph of John McCain was taken in the summer of 2006 and actually interestingly enough while while Shuller while Shullers image of Barack was published in GQ, his image of John McCain was published in Mens Vogue. And I find that also really interesting um I don't know exactly what it says about the way in which our culture absorbs politics and fashion and celebrity these days but I think it's really interesting that it's not Newsweek and Time magazine. Interestingly enough um, just as a variant of the image of Barack Obama appeared in GQ um, so too a variant image of McCain was published in the pages of um of Mens Vogue and unfortunately I was not able to bring a copy of that article with me, but I'll tell you that um McCain did not appear by himself in that article. Instead he appeared with um Senators Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and John Warner of Virginia. And so while the gist of 2004 article in GQ was to really say Barack Obama is a guy to watch the message um for the GQ ar.. for the Mens Vogue ah issue was a little bit different the the message was McCain is a team builder. And so I there was a subtlety um to the message that the photographs themselves put across. Which again I think is interesting and to my mind um given the fact that the photographers in this exhibition do both editorial assignments and fine art work. I think it does raise the interesting question and um I think this is a question that you brought up, why does certain pictures tell us certain things? And how does the context in which those images appear whether it's a fine art museum, whether it's GQ, whether it's Newsweek, how did those subtle ques cause us to interpret the meaning of an image? Um my take on these images um is that I find them not just interesting as political statements but as artistic statements.
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And some of you um I'm sure have read about the phenomenon of Miami basel, which is a giant art fair that [[background voice]] Well it just wrapped up, it actually just wrapped up but you're right it happens in December. And it is really probably certainly one of if not the largest gathering of artists, um, curators, critics, um, dealers, anybody who's interested in contemporary art. And the reason is that dealers are basically hawking their goods, but they're hawking their, the best of their stuff. And once again I was struck that this image of Barack Obama was on view in a very prominent place, it was stopping people in their tracks. But actually even more interestingly to me this was not the only image of Barack Obama. Portraits of him were everywhere. And when people asked me what I took away from the fair that is the thing that made the biggest impression on me, is that there is something about, and this such a wonderful question, is it about, does it have to do with his face? Does it have to do with the symmetry of his facial structure? Does it have to do with these wonderful ears? [[laughter]] I mean really what is it that makes him so appealing or are we actually, is this actually a suggestion that the art of portraiture is somehow intimately tied to our sense of people who are in fact important to record for historical purposes? And so it's something that I'm, I'm really intrigued by and I have a feeling, although I don't know, I have a feeling that Barack Obama is going to inspire an extraordinary outpouring of portraiture and I'll, it'll be fun to watch. Uh I think there does seem to be a sense of excitement and, and hopefulness attached to it. 'Kay I see three questions I'm gonna start in the back and then middle and then come to you.
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Anne Goodyear: Mhmm.
Audience 1: images by a photographer by the name of Plaeton, or Platon?
Anne Goodyear: Mhmm.
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Audience 1: of the cover for Time magazine, they did special issues of the Democrats
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Anne Goodyear: Mmm, Mhmm.
Audience 1: and the Republicans, and the images were very similar,
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Anne Goodyear: Mhmm.
Audience 1: except the background was dark. And, so, president-elect Obama came off looking very much like,
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Audience 1: for lack of a better way of putting it, Amun-Ra in some of the Egyptian iconography that you see,
Anne Goodyear: Huh.
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Audience 1: because it was long and narrow and dark and he had a very kind of gentle fade to his features,
Anne Goodyear: Uhuh. Uhuh.
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Audience 1: whereas Senator McCain came off as a little bit more strident. He was a little bit more brightly lit,
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Anne Goodyear: Interesting.
Audience 1: his skin is a little bit-- in this photograph it's a little bit sun-tanned, but in the one on Time magazine, it was a little bit pinky-blue.
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Anne Goodyear: Mhmm.
Audience 1: So a little paler.
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Audience 1: And that in itself made an editorial comment.
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Anne Goodyear: Very interesting.
Audience 1: But the the reason, to answer this lady's question over here about Mr. Obama's ears, the reason they're out of focus is because this is shot on film.
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Audience 1: This is not a digital photograph. And so, the photographer's main aim was the eyes and the mouth, because they are the most expressive parts of the human face.
Anne Goodyear: Mhmm.
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Audience 1: And so, he's he's trying to get the eyes and the mouth crystal clear focus, and everything else kind of fades out
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Audience 1: because he says that's more revealing. That's more, um, show's more person inside, rather than someone who's posing for a photograph.
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Anne Goodyear: Thank you so much. That's a wonderful observation. I really appreciate it.
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Audience 2: I'd like to invite your comments on the size of the photograph,
Anne Goodyear: Uhuh, uhuh.
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Audience 2: I mean I'm just comparing, frankly, your head to his as we're talking, [[laughing]] and I guess you could probably get about 10 or 12 of yours in there.
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Audience 2: [[Anne Goodyear laughing]] You know, about 10 times a normal human size. But-- and and that's really, obviously that's a big part of the power, right? It obviously invites us in and we can also see more detail,
Anne Goodyear: Mhmm
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Audience 2: but it's more than that, and I'm mean maybe the way to frame the question is,
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Audience 2: if this if this were on the side of a building, and 400 times the size,
Anne Goodyear: Uhuh
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Audience 2: that wouldn't even bother us, right? That might-- it would remind me a little bit of cults and personality,
Anne Goodyear: Mhmm.
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Audience 2: and you know, pictures of Stalin that are 4000 feet high.
Anne Goodyear: Right. Right. Right.
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Audience 2: There's something that's too big,
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Anne Goodyear: Uhuh.
Audience 2: and then there would obviously be something
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Anne Goodyear: Ya, I think it's a great question and it's a wonderful observation actually about the way in which time um-
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Anne Goodyear: Maybe shaped certain impressions that the images gave just because of a choice like background
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Anne Goodyear: I think gets at the fact, gets at the larger, um, at the larger issue of again how the composition of images impacts our sense of their meaning
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Anne Goodyear: um I should let you know that um, Schoeller is willing as an artist to um, do photographs at different scales and um,
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Anne Goodyear: So it's actually, in a sense no more right to have the image at this scale than it would be to have the image at the scale of the Paraha(?) people that you see
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Anne Goodyear: Um, one of the fun things, at least for me, about doing exhibitions is that there's always a little bit of a play between um,
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Anne Goodyear: The ideas that you have and the practical way in which you are going to execute those ideas
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Anne Goodyear: So from my standpoint in terms of um creating an exhibition with a lot of wall-power I found it more interesting to do, big images
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Anne Goodyear: And that was actually a decision reached in conjunction with the artist so really theoretically we could have done something smaller
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Anne Goodyear: And in fact um, the artist did make smaller prints of this image and sold them um, at a very reasonable cost to raise money for the Obama campaign
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Anne Goodyear: And they, he and his dealer actually did extremely well with that
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Anne Goodyear: But they're much smaller images, so there again you see that um, to enjoy this image you don't necessarily have to see it this scale
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Anne Goodyear: However, it, at the same time, strikes me that it is interesting that this is the scale that Martin prefers, that Martin Schoeller prefers
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Anne Goodyear: I think that scale, I think it's almost a primitive quality frankly, but I do think that there is something almost primitive about our association of size with power
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Anne Goodyear: And I can't help but think back to the famous heads on Easter Island
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Anne Goodyear: I've never even seen them in person, but they are present in my mind as a historical marker of longstanding desire to make important faces big
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Anne Goodyear: And we see it with the Egyptians as well um, and so I think that from Schoeller- I, that's part of why I was so, I'm so intrigued by the transition
00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:37.000
Anne Goodyear: Because Schoeller theoretically could have chosen this image, and printed it at this scale, but he didn't do that
00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:40.000
Anne Goodyear: And to my mind, that's why I was sorta thinking about the gravitas of this image
00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:45.000
Anne Goodyear: I think that the scale is important and I think that he is sending a message with the scale
00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:51.000
Anne Goodyear: But at the same time when Martin and I were talking about this show it was really important to him that we include Senator McCain
00:27:51.000 --> 00:28:04.000
Anne Goodyear: And that we have a sense of the larger balance because part of the reason that Obama is um such a powerful figure is that he's interacting with the larger sphere of,
00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:11.000
Anne Goodyear: significant important people who are also trying to have an impact on the world so he's not shaped in a vacuum
00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:15.990
Anne Goodyear: And I think that was also important for the artist to suggest but I think that's a great observation thank you, for your, for your question
00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:21.000
Anne Goodyear: Mhm. [[crosstalk]] {Audience Member} when I first walked in, I was sort of put off a little bit by, y'know,
00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:24.000
the camera angle and the angle in which the photograph was taken.
Anne Goodyear: Yeah.
00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:28.000
{Audience Member} But the more that I look at it
Anne Goodyear: uh huh {Audience Member} especially these two photographs side by side,
00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:32.000
and I've forgotten if you've said when they were chosen - that's sort of interesting to me -
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:35.000
my own personal read on it, is so much about, like,
00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:40.000
how he's really captured these very quintessential, nuanced expressions of these two different people
Anne Goodyear: uh huh. (Audience Member)
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:43.000
and I was, like - from my point of view,
00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:47.000
it's sort of like in McCain - I see that there's a pain and there's understanding,
Anne Goodyear: Mm-hmm.
00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:49.000
{Audience Member} there's idealism --
Anne Goodyear: Mm-hmm. {Audience Member} --and resignation.
00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:56.000
In Obama, I see like, sobriety, realism, practism, but optimism.
00:28:56.000 --> 00:28:59.000
And - these are two ways that I view these two different people
00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:05.000
throughout the campaign, and it's interesting the outcome.
00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:08.000
Anne Goodyear: Yeah, it- it is interesting. And when you say when these images were chosen
00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:10.000
did you - in what context did you mean?
00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:15.000
{Audience Member} Chosen for this like, exhibition.
Anne Goodyear: Oh, they were chosen for this exhibition in the spring of 2008.
00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:17.000
{Audience Member} So [[crosstalk]] way in advance of the outcome of the election?
00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:20.000
Anne Goodyear: Oh yes, we did not what the outcome of the election would be-
00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:26.000
- al-although it's important maybe, to note that we knew that it would go up after the election
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:32.000
and you know we love to reflect on history but we see ourselves as people who reflect on history,
00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:36.000
not as people who try to influence certain outcomes.
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:43.000
But when we were selecting these images, Martin and I had an inkling that this is how the race would shape up in the fall
00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:51.000
and so..so we just made an educated guess. Now had Hilary Clinton been the nominee
00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:54.000
maybe we- I don't know how we would have rejiggered things,
00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:57.000
but it did occur to us and that was actually a question
00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:02.000
um that we had in our minds um about how the whole installation would be shaped
00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:08.000
and of course that eventually was resolved when Obama became the nominee for the democratic party.
00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:12.000
One thing that people say about Obama - or maybe I shouldn't be too general -
00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:17.000
a comment that I heard made during the course of the campaign is that there's something about his face
00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:21.000
that enables lots of different people to read lots of different things into it,
00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:28.000
and I-sort of-kept that comment in my mind, and it's again something that I like to ponder I don't--
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:29.000
Unknown: Maybe it's symmetry
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:33.000
Anne Goodyear: But yes, that somehow - I think there does seem to be-
00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:39.000
but it's very interesting. Um there, you know, this is just a question I-I have to ask myself.
00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:43.000
Have I been primed to see his face in that way by things I've been hearing,
00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:48.000
more so than being primed to see McCain's - um, yeah - McCain's face in that light?
00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:54.000
Ah, so again I think one of the values of this exhibition is that it raises all these questions.
00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:59.000
And I think that's part of the reason that Schoeller finds it so important to have this
00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:05.000
deliberately uniform approach to making photographs and I'm so glad, David,
00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:08.000
that you pointed out that this is an image made out of film,
00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:17.000
and there's no attempt t-to correct sort of, quote on quote, correct for things like the ears going out of focus,
00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:23.000
but I loved your point about the eyes and the mouth being the features that Schoeller obviously chose to focus on,
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:26.000
and so now I'm gonna have to go around and ask myself,
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:31.000
is that the case in every single image? And I suspect that we'll find it is
00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:36.000
but, once again that will be another really important um question to look at.
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:42.000
But I think Schoeller wants us to be aware that we're bringing our own uh-- [[crosstalk]]
00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:49.000
our own ideas to these image that he is not by virtue of framing things slightly differently,
00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:53.000
by virtue of having slightly different colored backgrounds behind the people,
00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:00.000
trying to deliberately influence the outcome of the reactions that we have to these pictures.
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:07.000
{Audience Member} Even into the reflections of their own eyes
Anne Goodyear: Yeah! (Audience Member) it's just a studio [[crosstalk]]
Anne Goodyear: Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. [[crosstalk]]
00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:14.000
Anne Goodyear: I think he wants us to kn- to have the pleasure of reflecting on our own responses to these images.
00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:17.090
I'll take one- one final comment, thank you. {Audience Member 2} Do you think there's a--
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:23.000
{Unknown Speaker} --crisis.
Anne Goodyear: Mm-hmm.
00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:27.000
{Unknown Speaker} And there are portraits in this museum of other presidents--
Anne Goodyear: Mm-hmm.
00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:30.000
{Unknown Speaker} --through very great crisised times--
Anne Goodyear: Mm-hmm.
00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:37.000
{Unknown Speaker} --you see questionably portrayed. Do you think this makes an important program for this museum?
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:44.000
To see that this president - he gets recorded at a serial time, over the next - 4 years at least?
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:47.000
Anne Goodyear: I think it would be an extraordinary thing to do.
00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:50.000
I think it would be an extraordinary thing to do.
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:55.000
And I think, um, I think one of the things we would have to figure out -
00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:58.000
again, this balance between the ideal and the practical
00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:03.000
- we would have to figure out how do we fund that? How do we make that possible?
00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:06.000
But I think it would be a fascinating thing to do.
00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:12.000
I really do. And, um, so yeah. Thank you - I, I hope that one way or another,
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:15.000
we will have a way to record the changes
00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:18.000
onto this leader over time. So thank you so much.
00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:26.184
Thank you all for your time and attention. I appreciate it. [[clapping]]
