I really loved the Diane Arbus retrospective at the Met last year and love her portraits of freaks as she called them. Photography in the late 20th century/early 21st century redefined what art meant to people (which is why Susan Sontag was so hostile towards photography being categorized as an art).
It is also unfortunate that she is only known for photographing freaks with physical deformities. She was attracted to all kinds of people: quirky rich widows, children clowning around in Coney Islands, couples with their babies, teenage sweethearts dressing up like adults, dominatrix (?!), transvestites, couples in old homes at beauty pagents, ordinary couples at nudist camps and so on!
She was attracted to freaks and people on the margins and the way she photographed her subjects made you look at them directly and not turn the other way.
After the retrospective, you really did not get the sense that she was objectifying her subjects. On the contrary, all of them are aware of the camera and are returning the photographer's gaze (and perhaps the viewers too). There was nothing surreptitious about the process (unlike that of Henri Cartier-Bresson or other street photographers). She had her big medium format camera and often returned to shoot her subjects in settings they were very familiar with. There was always full consent and none of her subjects sued her when she had gallery exhibits (of which she had very few because the snotty NY art scene hated her work and hated her guts).
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/art/?050321craw_artworld
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Tyr, I have a tough time getting this NYer's discussion. I think good art has to at least start as technique and nothing about Arbus communicates that. This talk about the images grabbing the reviewer's attention and so on I don't get. You are grabbed by the subject's being handicapped and by the audacity of her turning a buck by selling snaps of them, not by anything artistic Arbus did.
Why not post some shots of hers that you CAN look at? All I have seen of hers is stuff that you can't.
Qu'est-ce que le beau, sinon une convention acceptée par la majorité à un certain moment ?
Je ne crois pas aux improvisateurs. En réalité, le grand art est toujours le produit d'une extraordinaire habileté technique.
Il faut faire preuve d'une grande modestie et se garder de prendre pour argent comptant les affirmations des spécialistes pour qui chaque question a toujours une réponse.
--Federico Zeri
The upcoming exhibit of work by failed scientist M.A. features her undeniable technical ability, which is evidenced by the beautiful execution of uninterpretable experiments. Flawlessly clean virus preps are also showcased. The exhibit will run until her taxpayer dollars are depleted.
Je ne crois pas aux scientists.
Post a Comment