Diane Arbus

"Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like giving a hand grenade to a baby.” -Norman Mailer

Biography:

Diane Arbus

March 14, 1923- July 26 1971 (Suicide, Age 48)

Diane was born Diane Nemerov in New York City, and attended Fieldston School for Ethical Culture

Both Diane and her husband Allan were photographers. Diane got her start taking photographs for her father’s department store and later began to shoot commercial photography with Allen for publications such as Glamour, Seventeen, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar. Both Diane and Allan admitted to hating the fashion world.

Diane quit shooting commercial photography and photographing on assignment around 1956.

Significance: Diane was known for shooting deviant and marginalized people such as dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, circus performers, and the mentally ill. For these people, their “normality seems ugly or surreal.”

Art Historical or Photographic Movement: Diane was not considered a part of any sort of movement that I could find, but shot photos in a documentary manner.

Critique/Review: Susan Sontag was especially critical of Diane’s work. Her essay, “Freak Show,” considered Diane’s work void of beauty and claimed that her images did not make the viewed feel compassion for her subjects. Sontag’s essay itself has been criticized, and Arbus noted that she had photographed Sontag and her son, causing a bias. Other critics found her work “an extraordinary ethical conviction,” “filled with life and energy,” and “revolutionary.”

Composition: Arbus generally shot portraits in a square format with black and white film. In many of her images the subject is slightly off center and the content tends to be unsettling or uncomfortable for the general public. Most of her images have fairly high contrast, and her subjects are in strong focus in the frame.

Concept/Aboutness/Idea: Diane Arbus shot photos of castoffs and outsiders, and considered herself a part of this group. She felt as if she could capture someone’s spirit through a photograph and was relentless in pursuing these images. She caught subjects in moments of “terrifying pathos and empathy.” By documenting these people. They could no longer be ignored by society. Her subjects included nudists, sideshow freaks, transvestites, the mentally ill, and mentally handicapped children.

Method: Early on, Diane shot with a 35 mm Nikon that shot grainy images. She later switched to the crisp square images of a twin-lens reflex Rolleiflex. In 1964 she began using a twin-reflex Mamiya. In Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, Arbus shot an image of a thin boy holding a grenade and grimacing psychotically. Her technique when shooting this boy was to wear down his patience until the boy who, in contact sheets, looked very happy, but now seemed unstable. For other images, Arbus visited the homes of people that society may seem as outsiders or deviants, including mental institutions and circus tents.

 Motivations: Arbus felt that she could relate to these marginalized people and, by documenting their lives, made them impossible to be swept under the rug by society. Diane has been accused of exploiting these people.

Your Opinion: I find Diane’s work beautiful, although somewhat unsettling. I envy her ability to be fearless in her documentation and feel that she gave a voice to members of society who might not ordinarily be heard. I think it was brave to even recognize that she felt the way that they did, and related to their alienation. 

“A photograph is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.” -Diane Arbus