0:00:12.720,0:00:18.160 I think there is this sort[br]of conflicting obsessions. 0:00:18.160,0:00:20.792 One is kind of twinship and[br]the other is opposition. 0:00:22.160,0:00:26.045 It's about people that look[br]the same but aren't the same. 0:00:27.000,0:00:28.480 It's about boys that look like girls 0:00:28.480,0:00:29.960 or girls that look like boys. 0:00:31.600,0:00:35.255 Or boys that look like soldiers in arms. 0:00:37.320,0:00:41.920 I'm trying to create tribes of people. 0:00:41.920,0:00:44.640 And I think that's why I was[br]so drawn to the wrestling. 0:00:44.640,0:00:45.960 You get there and there's this tribe, 0:00:45.960,0:00:48.525 and they do sort of look a bit similar. 0:00:49.480,0:00:51.532 They all have the same kind of bodies. 0:00:52.280,0:00:55.000 Their ears turn the same way[br]if they wrestle too long. 0:00:55.000,0:00:59.000 And when you have this kind[br]of twinship in opposition, 0:00:59.000,0:01:01.640 it becomes, I mean, it's a[br]kind of a metaphor for this, 0:01:01.640,0:01:03.988 you know, for the Jew and the German. 0:01:04.840,0:01:07.360 German Jews thinking that[br]they were the same as Germans 0:01:07.360,0:01:09.501 and being so different. 0:01:24.986,0:01:25.000 (upbeat music) 0:01:25.000,0:01:28.681 I decided to go back to high school [br]and photograph high school wrestling. 0:01:32.680,0:01:35.320 I had never really seen my wrestling team 0:01:35.320,0:01:37.920 because no one ever had interest in wrestling. 0:01:37.920,0:01:40.300 And I was just really taken by the guys. 0:01:42.520,0:01:44.566 I loved the way the guys looked, 0:01:45.960,0:01:51.983 I loved that they were doing something [br]that in a way made them small outcasts. 0:01:54.280,0:01:58.600 They were doing not a popular sport, [br]not a sport that people watched. 0:01:58.600,0:02:01.171 A sport that, that was really difficult. 0:02:04.320,0:02:07.226 Particularly in practice it’s about partnerships. 0:02:08.800,0:02:13.278 And I just thought it was a really beautiful [br]relationship that I had never seen before. 0:02:20.840,0:02:23.160 All at the same time I had heard about a guy, 0:02:23.160,0:02:26.475 a friend of mine I knew, who used [br]to be a really big college wrestler. 0:02:27.120,0:02:29.200 He was sort of you know on the fringe art world 0:02:29.200,0:02:31.312 and we should get together sometime. 0:02:32.138,0:02:36.680 He’s been coaching me and kind of explaining 0:02:36.680,0:02:39.635 from the position of a wrestler what’s going on. 0:02:43.171,0:02:45.000 JON: Whenever we would go somewhere we would just 0:02:45.000,0:02:47.040 talk the whole time about wrestling. 0:02:47.040,0:02:50.320 And it was fun for me to try to, [br]you know, answer her questions 0:02:50.320,0:02:54.240 because she would ask questions about [br]things that were innate or something 0:02:54.240,0:02:57.200 I knew automatically from doing it for so long 0:02:57.200,0:02:59.080 but I would have to explain it and come, 0:02:59.080,0:03:00.689 you know, try to explain it to her… 0:03:02.960,0:03:05.204 she understands, you know, she catches on quickly. 0:03:13.360,0:03:16.520 For me, ya know, and I can [br]only approach it as a woman, 0:03:16.520,0:03:18.440 but for me, from the outside 0:03:18.440,0:03:22.880 masculinity has sort of been depicted [br]in very black and white terms. 0:03:23.440,0:03:25.520 There’s just, there never seems to be a, 0:03:25.520,0:03:29.760 a wide range of emotional definitions of men. 0:03:31.520,0:03:32.822 –Are you guys twins? 0:03:32.822,0:03:34.122 –No. 0:03:35.800,0:03:37.560 I love when I’m shooting wrestling, 0:03:37.560,0:03:42.290 particularly in practice to see [br]two guys throwing some moves 0:03:43.400,0:03:45.520 and then being careful that [br]they didn’t hurt each other. 0:03:45.520,0:03:48.800 You know pushing as hard as [br]they can but then pulling back, 0:03:48.800,0:03:50.000 making sure that they’re okay. 0:03:51.240,0:03:53.595 Talking about how to do it better, 0:03:55.040,0:04:00.600 All that kind of stuff I think is is to me a rich, 0:04:00.600,0:04:03.128 a rich part of, of masculinity. 0:04:09.528,0:04:13.352 See, this is the classic wrestling guy. 0:04:13.352,0:04:17.842 I just love this guy—St. [br]Eds—He won his match so fast. 0:04:24.320,0:04:29.720 And then the newer pictures are like this 0:04:39.160,0:04:42.372 I’m looking for introspection. 0:04:43.120,0:04:47.521 I’m looking for the moment [br]before the guy goes out there. 0:04:48.760,0:04:50.360 The moment when he comes off 0:04:50.360,0:04:54.120 either exhilarated because he won or[br]devastated because he lost. 0:04:55.720,0:04:57.080 I like devastation. 0:04:57.080,0:04:58.440 I like exhaustion. 0:04:58.440,0:05:02.769 I, I really like seeing someone [br]that I know can’t barely get up 0:05:07.440,0:05:10.000 The thing about a wrestling practice is the 0:05:10.000,0:05:13.691 coach will really get every [br]last bit of energy out of you. 0:05:16.840,0:05:21.040 And there’s a peacefulness in [br]that moment that I really love, 0:05:21.040,0:05:23.596 to see someone who’s just used their entire body. 0:05:29.480,0:05:31.560 As much as you explain to someone that you want to 0:05:31.560,0:05:33.080 show all sides of it, 0:05:33.080,0:05:35.697 no one who lost wants a flash on their face. 0:05:37.400,0:05:39.361 –Oh, sorry.. 0:05:39.722,0:05:43.920 But having a woman approach them is different. 0:05:43.920,0:05:46.863 I think most of the people in the [br]wrestling world are, are guys. 0:05:56.120,0:05:58.240 –You wonna draw a picture from these pictures? 0:05:58.240,0:06:05.640 –Ya, okay, I'll do it if [br]you'll make a trade with me. 0:06:06.360,0:06:08.840 Teenagers’ sexuality belongs to themselves. 0:06:10.960,0:06:15.120 If I catch a glimpse of their sexiness, 0:06:15.120,0:06:18.280 it’s a sexiness they’re playing [br]with and they’re practicing, 0:06:18.280,0:06:20.703 but it’s not something I’m asking for. 0:06:22.200,0:06:23.640 I’m aware that it’s there, 0:06:23.640,0:06:25.574 I’m aware that other people might see it, 0:06:26.400,0:06:31.440 but I’m interested in the life [br]I would have had if I was a boy 0:06:31.440,0:06:33.101 and this is one facet of it. 0:06:49.560,0:06:54.080 Gender, religion, nationality, they’re all sort of[br]things that are in flux in my work. 0:06:54.803,0:06:56.520 Um, and they all build on each other, 0:06:56.520,0:06:58.977 this idea of you’re not [br]sure what you’re looking at. 0:06:59.880,0:07:01.880 You’re not sure what you are, 0:07:01.880,0:07:03.467 you’re not sure what someone else is. 0:07:06.280,0:07:08.480 In the Helga pictures, 0:07:08.480,0:07:12.892 I set out to create a total [br]portrait of a young man 0:07:13.640,0:07:17.680 using Andrew Wyeth’s Helga [br]paintings as a template. 0:07:17.680,0:07:22.338 To explore how one defines someone in images. 0:07:24.687,0:07:29.520 And also using a description of [br]femininity to describe a man. 0:07:32.560,0:07:36.040 You start to wonder with [br]the Andrew Wyeth portraits 0:07:36.040,0:07:38.960 is it a feminine pose or is it an artists pose, 0:07:38.960,0:07:40.120 is it Wyeth’s pose, 0:07:40.120,0:07:41.393 is it Helga’s pose? 0:07:46.400,0:07:48.480 Helga reminds me so much of Jens, 0:07:48.480,0:07:50.000 this boy Jens, from Prague. 0:07:54.320,0:07:59.520 This was Jens when he was eighteen and a half. 0:07:59.520,0:08:05.175 And he was really quite similar in the physique. 0:08:08.014,0:08:14.896 And then he really changed here [br]when he turned nineteen and a half. 0:08:15.877,0:08:16.764 He got slimmer. 0:08:19.680,0:08:23.384 You see the resistance of the [br]boy Jens in playing Helga. 0:08:25.320,0:08:27.720 He’s playing this character, 0:08:27.720,0:08:30.080 and the only way he can pose in certain poses is 0:08:30.080,0:08:33.400 to know that everyone else knows he’s playing her, 0:08:33.400,0:08:35.435 that it’s not really him. 0:08:36.080,0:08:38.200 But you see moments where he forgets. 0:08:38.200,0:08:41.943 And they’re the poses he would call neutral poses. 0:08:43.440,0:08:48.236 And the feminine poses are the poses [br]that he feels women perform for men. 0:08:51.720,0:08:53.920 It wouldn’t have been a successful project 0:08:53.920,0:08:57.760 had there not been an intense [br]collaboration between Jens and I, 0:08:57.760,0:09:00.640 like both understanding we’re both doing this job, 0:09:00.640,0:09:03.200 and it was somewhat difficult and confusing, 0:09:03.200,0:09:04.784 and we had mixed feelings about it, 0:09:05.920,0:09:10.400 but it became a kind of ritual, [br]like making these pictures, 0:09:10.400,0:09:13.306 and often we’d make the same [br]picture over and over again. 0:09:16.480,0:09:17.840 There’s a notion of—I think— 0:09:17.840,0:09:21.396 that I’ve always had in my work of [br]trying to get very close to something. 0:09:23.240,0:09:27.000 You know trying to create as [br]little distance as possible between 0:09:27.000,0:09:27.960 the viewer and the subject 0:09:27.960,0:09:36.041 and I think that the level of intimacy that [br]Wyeth pursued was really familar to me. 0:09:39.680,0:09:45.280 Fourteen years ago I went to Stuttgart [br]with a German friend from New York, 0:09:45.280,0:09:50.596 and ended up in this small town [br]and met this amazing family. 0:09:52.480,0:09:55.940 I kind of just fell in love with the whole family 0:09:55.940,0:10:00.756 in kind of traditional, kind [br]of country family setting. 0:10:02.640,0:10:06.640 And I guess about four [br]summers into the relationship 0:10:06.640,0:10:10.388 I started photographing the [br]younger members of the family. 0:10:14.440,0:10:19.200 It really became part of, I [br]think, the summer experience, 0:10:19.200,0:10:22.240 that you know summer came with picture taking. 0:10:22.240,0:10:27.100 And it was this kind of big thing that [br]happened, sometimes every day for a week.[br] 0:10:31.000,0:10:33.215 I started shooting Herbert [br]when he was nine years old. 0:10:34.480,0:10:37.280 And he doesn’t even remember [br]the first time he was shot, 0:10:37.280,0:10:40.528 he has to look at pictures to, [br]to say, oh yeah that was me. 0:10:42.360,0:10:47.463 HERBERT: We would go to the forest and kind of play soldiers with the uniforms at that time. 0:10:48.960,0:10:51.028 And play hide and seek. 0:10:52.680,0:10:56.280 Schorr: Here’s Karin dressed up as a guy. 0:10:56.280,0:10:58.440 Everything was so fake there. 0:10:58.440,0:11:00.600 There was a girl playing a guy, 0:11:00.600,0:11:03.840 there’s all these German boys playing grown men 0:11:03.840,0:11:06.832 and there’s Germans playing American soldiers. 0:11:07.400,0:11:10.809 And all this clothing was [br]yours at that point right? 0:11:10.809,0:11:11.920 Herbert: Right.[br]Schorr: Because that is how I started doing army 0:11:11.920,0:11:14.041 pictures because you had all this stuff. 0:11:14.041,0:11:17.190 Herbert: Because of my army nerdiness. 0:11:17.190,0:11:18.740 Schorr: Yes, your army obsession. 0:11:18.740,0:11:23.964 HERBERT: I might have possessed [br]like seven or eight U.S. uniforms 0:11:24.480,0:11:25.934 when I met Collier first. 0:11:26.760,0:11:32.160 We got the U.S. military uniforms [br]pretty cheap at flea markets 0:11:32.160,0:11:35.320 because troops were leaving town at [br]that time, or they were leaving Germany. 0:11:38.340,0:11:41.080 Schorr: But you always had this posse of guys 0:11:41.080,0:11:46.234 that for what was I paying back in [br]the old days like 10 marks an hour. 0:11:47.980,0:11:54.040 Schorr: you can’t go to a lake [br]with a bunch of teenage boys 0:11:54.040,0:11:55.391 and not have a plan. 0:11:56.320,0:11:57.935 You’ve got to have a plan. 0:12:01.520,0:12:04.120 When we’re kind of marching around the lake,[br] 0:12:04.120,0:12:08.440 I may say, okay Herbert, you [br]know hold Andreas’s shoulder. 0:12:08.440,0:12:12.120 And they’ll just kind of pose [br]like that, and that’s a picture. 0:12:12.120,0:12:14.699 And it’s not a picture I planned, [br]but it’s a picture I saw. 0:12:21.280,0:12:23.680 When you’re a Jew and you walk around in Germany, 0:12:23.680,0:12:25.523 it has such a hold on you. 0:12:26.400,0:12:30.080 And I wanted see it from all sides. 0:12:30.080,0:12:34.320 I always saw it from the side of you [br]know the Jew who felt victimized, 0:12:34.320,0:12:36.000 or the Jew who felt oppressed. 0:12:36.000,0:12:38.960 And I was very comfortable [br]in that role for many years. 0:12:38.960,0:12:44.040 But being in Germany for a longer amount of time, 0:12:44.040,0:12:47.120 my experience changed, my [br]relationship changed to the country; 0:12:47.120,0:12:53.925 my curiosity about what it was like from [br]the other side kind of opened me up. 0:12:56.480,0:13:00.400 So much of my work, especially portraits of, 0:13:00.400,0:13:06.440 of large, blond, strong guys is really [br]about confronting a sort of Aryan myth 0:13:06.440,0:13:08.920 that terrified me as a little girl, 0:13:08.920,0:13:11.200 because I would read books [br]like DIARY OF ANNE FRANK 0:13:11.200,0:13:14.160 and things like that and that [br]was what you were scared of. 0:13:14.160,0:13:16.520 That was the Jewish girl’s boogeyman, 0:13:16.520,0:13:19.612 you know the big blond guy [br]kind of coming up the stairs. 0:13:27.520,0:13:34.731 I mean I think all the boys really enjoyed [br]playing heroes or playing good guys. 0:13:36.280,0:13:38.880 It was, it was strange to [br]bring in the Nazi uniforms 0:13:38.880,0:13:42.360 because they were suddenly [br]confronted with something 0:13:42.360,0:13:46.200 that they didn’t feel very positive [br]about or they were afraid that… 0:13:46.200,0:13:48.120 to feel positive about. 0:13:48.120,0:13:51.720 And so I think those pictures [br]have an interesting quality 0:13:51.720,0:13:53.360 that separates them from the other ones 0:13:53.360,0:13:59.040 because there’s a real uncertainty in [br]their expressions, in their posture. 0:14:03.147,0:14:04.440 HERBERT: The German youth has some… 0:14:04.440,0:14:12.434 kind of um a torn apart relationship [br]with this kind of stuff. 0:14:13.560,0:14:17.600 You won’t see a swastika anyplace [br]because it’s forbidden by law, 0:14:17.600,0:14:18.577 it’s not legal. 0:14:19.480,0:14:21.920 And so besides of running the risk that 0:14:21.920,0:14:26.631 you can be punished for wearing a [br]Wehrmacht and S.S. uniforms in public, 0:14:27.560,0:14:31.400 you are simply not used to it [br]because you would see this stuff, 0:14:31.400,0:14:32.773 not even in museums. 0:14:35.680,0:14:37.200 Probably you would see it in a, 0:14:37.200,0:14:39.040 in a feature film from that time, 0:14:39.040,0:14:42.140 in an American feature [br]film, not even a German one. 0:14:45.960,0:14:49.080 So many things are buried [br]in the landscape in Germany. 0:14:49.080,0:14:53.080 So many uniforms and medals, [br]and you hear stories of people 0:14:53.080,0:14:57.120 coming upon buttons and helmets in, in the fields. 0:14:57.120,0:15:00.840 And I think that I really [br]wanted to flush some of that up, 0:15:00.840,0:15:02.040 to dig some of that up, 0:15:02.040,0:15:07.840 and to almost that some of these soldiers [br]seemed to have come up from the ground. 0:15:07.840,0:15:10.200 So that if you were walking in [br]the field and you saw a helmet, 0:15:10.200,0:15:13.397 it was as though the soldier [br]rose up with that helmet. 0:15:14.120,0:15:17.960 And he didn’t rise up as the ultimate villain 0:15:17.960,0:15:20.720 and he didn’t rise up as the ultimate victim, 0:15:20.720,0:15:27.760 he rose up as, as just a guy you [br]know, who fought, just a guy who died. 0:15:27.760,0:15:28.960 Um, just a guy who killed someone. 0:15:36.634,0:15:41.400 Schorr: I like the relationship [br]between this current Joa, 0:15:41.400,0:15:45.960 this current solider with these Nazis 0:15:45.960,0:15:47.680 because it really looks like to me that 0:15:47.680,0:15:52.440 he represents the whole German [br]Army that sits in the woods 0:15:52.440,0:15:54.409 and maybe daydreams. 0:15:59.080,0:16:01.840 If the forest is the pride of Germany, 0:16:01.840,0:16:04.800 then you know let’s talk [br]about what actually happened 0:16:04.800,0:16:05.850 in the forest rather than [br]just showing the forest. [br] 0:16:07.528,0:16:11.480 I’m not making something that’s about the façade, 0:16:11.480,0:16:18.557 I’m making something that’s [br]about removing the myth, 0:16:20.080,0:16:23.268 and then being left with [br]something that is more human. 0:16:30.920,0:16:35.080 There’s not a single intention that [br]I want people to walk away with 0:16:35.080,0:16:36.530 when they look at the body of work. 0:16:37.640,0:16:43.320 I wanted to make work that spoke to [br]as many people’s desires as possible, 0:16:43.320,0:16:45.520 be it a sort of maternal desire, 0:16:45.520,0:16:48.064 or a fraternal desire… 0:16:49.200,0:16:51.214 the desire to revisit your youth, 0:16:52.040,0:16:53.950 the desire for romance. 0:16:55.240,0:16:59.000 For me there is no progress [br]unless you put things forward, 0:16:59.000,0:17:02.720 unless you sort of unveil, you know, desire, 0:17:02.720,0:17:05.655 unless you unveil uh, repression.