© The Estate of Diane Arbus, LLC
"There's a kind of power thing about the camera.
I mean everyone knows you've
got some edge. You're carrying some
magic which does something to them. It fixes them in a
way." –Diane Arbus
In 1967, Diane Arbus was included with her contemporaries Garry
Winogrand and Lee Friedlander, in the hugely significant exhibition “New
Documents” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York curated by John
Szarkowski. A posthumous retrospective of her work was exhibited at MoMA
in 1972, one year after her death.
Fahey/Klein Gallery presents a special Diane
Arbus exhibition opening March 28. This exhibition includes several important Arbus photographs such as: Russian midget friends in a living room on 100th Street, N.Y.C., 1963; Lady Bartender at home with a souvenir dog, New Orleans, L.A., 1964; Jack Dracula, the Marked Man, N.Y.C., 1961; Two ladies at the automat, N.Y.C., 1966; and Circus fat lady and her dog, Troubles. "Diane Arbus remains one of the most influential and revered artists in the history of photography." –Fahey/Klein
DIANE ARBUS: Photographs
March 28 – May 18
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5 comments:
Great artist !
Pierre
The words still ring true. The fact is only magnified by the sheer number of cell phone cameras -- anyone can record you at any time, sometimes without your knowledge. And the professional cameras are still with us and carry with them the same presence, the same "edge".
10 hours ago
I really love her images, they stick in my mind in part because I feel she was seeing joy when she took them, I feel like she was trying to capture that for herself too. When I see her images like the one you have shown they make me happy too, I feel like I really am looking at them the way she did and that really shows she was one very talented artist. I aspire to make images that other people can look at and feel the emotions that I feel when I capture them.
JH, Cell phone cameras do not get close to holding the "power" Diane was referring to and compounded with the era we now live. Back then, photographing was more of a unique and seldomly seen occasion.. people did not mind to be photographed, they were not yet paranoid about being posted on the web, as every person now thinks you will be doing with the images. If everyone has power then nobody does.
Yes, a professional camera seen in public during the 1960's elicited the notion that a serious photographer was present and the people who might become subjects were more amenable to being photographed than the public is today. The commonplace cell phone/camera makes a paltry "presence" by comparison, but the ubiquitous cellphone camera wields even more power -- a collective power -- that has never before been seen. Why do we now have police who insist that no photographs be taken? After 9/11, cameras are especially recognized for their power. The recognition of this fact does not give away the magic of photography, nor does it remove its power.
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