THE VILLAGE VOICE

By Sharyn Jackson

German photographer Martin Schoeller must have been quite the American Gladiators fan. His latest exhibition, Female Bodybuilders, gives viewers the chance to truly gawk at larger-than-life images of several larger-than-life ladies who were or are famed on the bodybuilding circuit. The images of these women's feminine, dolled-up faces above their muscular torsos—some adorned with rhinestone-studded bikini tops—are fascinating and a bit surreal. And though none of them have names like "Ice," "Storm," or "Blaze," they look as if they could tear up a padded TV studio with the best of them.