Musée Magazine Issue No. 19 - Power | Page 32

I’ve had multiple galleries in the past, but then they started fighting and I became the middleman and it was just a mess. ANDREA: What’s up with wanting to be called a photographer and not an artist or vice versa? MARTIN: Artists can use photography for art, of course. The biggest difference is that I work on assignment most of the time. I think to be called an artist you have to re-invent the medium you’re working in. Doing portraits like Avedon or painting like Picasso isn’t being an artist, you have to offer something new. I think art has to be something different, and I think it has to be self-assigned. I picked out the subject matter with my female bodybuilder series, but I didn’t reinvent the wheel of photography. You can call me an artist if you want, but if someone asks, I call myself a photographer. Martin Schoeller, Above: Kim Buck; Opposite: Kim Harris. 30