Up Close

A prominent feature of New York-based photographer Martin Schoeller’s work is his visually powerful and stripped-down portraits. In his much-acclaimed series and ongoing project 'Close Up', which he began 20 years ago, Schoeller presents naked and detailed representations of famous as well as unknown faces, always using the same lens, the same lighting and the same angle to create portraits unbound by their contexts. 'Close Up' comprises unembellished portraits of celebrities such as Zlatan Ibrahimović, Barack Obama, Taylor Swift and Meryl Streep as well as portraits of unknown and often homeless people.

Fotografiska presents four series of Schoeller’s photography: 'Portraits', 'Close Up', 'Female Bodybuilders' and 'Identical'. In 'Identical', Schoeller works with detailed portraits of twins and triplets, and in the series 'Female Bodybuilders' he portrays bodybuilders at the height of their careers. Without using digital manipulation, Schoeller presents the women as they are.

Born in Munich in 1968, Martin Schoeller has lived and worked in New York since the beginning of the 1990s. In 1993–1996, he was the assistant of Annie Leibovitz.
Combining his own art projects with commercial commissions, Martin Schoeller has for over 15 years photographed for The New Yorker and his photographic works have also been published in Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire, W, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar among others.

Schoeller is represented by Hasted Kraeutier Gallery in New York, Ace Gallery in Los Angeles, and Camera Work in Germany, as well as in the collections of some the world’s most prominent collectors of photography and modern art. He has held solo exhibitions in Europe and the United States and his portraits are represented in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. 'Up Close' at Fotografiska is Martin Schoeller’s first exhibition in Sweden.

Please find more information at Fotografiska