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