Overview
Female Bodybuilders
“The women featured in Female Bodybuilders work towards their ideal forms at great and varied
cost. Many court danger by manipulating the performance enhancing drugs that are a worrying
fixture and near requirement of their sport in the process. But their willingness to do this within
the slim margins of their chosen sport, in contradiction to all of the widely established norms of a
culture that openly rewards beauty and punishes perceived ugliness, is difficult not to respect.
I began photographing these women in 2003. From the first Polaroid, I was struck by the multi-dimensional complexity of the portrait. The contradictions were so seemingly apparent, so numerous and exciting, that I felt compelled to build a catalog outside the range of judgment; not to
celebrate, condemn or expose, but merely to show.
In my other work, specifically the book and exhibition Close Up, I have tried to present intimate
portraits of faces with as little artifice as possible. Familiar and famous faces are treated with the
same levels of scrutiny and attention as the un-famous. The unknown and the too-well-known
meet on a level platform, where a viewer’s existing notions of celebrity, value and honesty are challenged.
With the Female Bodybuilder series I am offering a proximate challenge. We all operate within
narrowly constructed ideals of the good, the right, and the beautiful, all subject to the countless
influences that swirl around us. The athletes presented here are no different in this regard, they
are as vulnerable as any other person standing in front of a camera. So what is it that provokes our
admiring, conforming, outraged, or confused response? If a subject is proud of the way she looks,
whose discomfort are you feeling?” - Martin Schoeller, Female Bodybuilders
Exhibitions
2010, Female Bodybuilders, Hasted Hunt Kraeultler, New York, New York, USA
2008, Female Bodybuilders, Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA
