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July 26: Diane Arbus

lawrencebush
July 26, 2012

Photographer Diane Arbus, best known for her black-and-white photographs of strange-looking or marginalized people, committed suicide at age 48 on this date in 1971. She discovered photography with her husband, Allan Arbus, and they teamed up to become a successful commercial and fashion photo team. In the late 1950s, she switched her focus to portraiture and photo-journalism. Arbus was the first American photographer featured at the Venice Biennale, posthumously in 1972, and the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of her work late that year that traveled through the United States and Canada for three years and was viewed by over seven million people. Her critics viewed Arbus’ photographs as voyeuristic, unsympathetic, and expressive more of her depressive state of mind than of human reality; her admirers viewed them (always taken with the consent of her subjects) as revolutionary, honest, revelatory, filled with story and suggestion, and ethically challenging to the viewer. Arbus’ work, which fetches very high prices at auction houses, might be seen as anticipating reality television in portraying people in full, smiling freakiness and tapping into the viewer’s fascination/revulsion. She was the sister of U.S. poet laureate Howard Nemerov. For a short video video exhibit of some of her work, click here.
“Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.” —Diane Arbus