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Transcription: [00:00:00]
{SPEAKER name="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.

[00:00:27]
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.

[00:00:46]
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.
[00:01:23]

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.
[00:01:48]

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.

[00:02:05]

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.

[00:02:29]

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.
[00:03:03]

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.
[00:03:30]

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.
[00:03:50]

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.
[00:04:19]

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.
[00:04:41]

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.
[00:04:59]

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.
[00:05:28]

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.
[00:05:50]

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.
[00:06:15]

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.
[00:06:51]

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.
[00:07:20]

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.
[00:07:45]

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.
[00:08:03]

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.
[00:08:43]

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.
[00:09:09]