Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus
Retrieved from Wikipedia.

Sometimes, it is what lies on the periphery, on the fringe, that is truly worth taking the time to examine. Diane Arbus (neé Diane Nemerov) took that concept and built a photography career around it. Sometimes seen as exploitive, crude, or controversial, her photographs of giants, circus performers, dwarfs, and more could fetch for thousands of dollars, regardless. Her back-story isn’t terribly unusual, however: she was the daughter of an affluent New York Jewish couple, attended a prep school, and married her high school sweetheart. Her violent suicide (slashed wrists) at the relatively young age of 48 suggests a darkness which will forever color her body of work in the annals of modern photography.

With the core of her classic work having been created in the 1960s, Arbus’s choice to use these people as the subjects of her photographs is an important historical step in the evolution of the medium. In this course, we have seen photographs of aristocrats, dead children with their living parents, beautiful landscapes, and images of war. The aforementioned subjects each filled a valuable societal niche: the documentation of people’s lives, their vocations, their families, the land around us, etc. Throughout human history, we have sought out various ways to preserve our culture and important events (although we sometimes manipulate our images for effect, as we see fit). When presented with “unsavory” images (besides photos of dead bodies and the like), how do we react? Does a photo of a family of dwarfs in their living room make us laugh? Feel uncomfortable? If so, why should it? The value of Arbus’s work lies in her idiosyncratic mission to bring these people who reside on the fringe, these oddities, to the forefront via stark photographic images. One critic, Max Kozloff wrote in 1967 that Arbus's photographs have 'an extraordinary ethical conviction' because they were taken with the subjects' consent and thereby challenge the viewer.Some of her subjects gaze into the camera as if to silently say: “Here I am, warts and all – take it or leave it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Take for example this photograph of this family in a Pennsylvanian nudist camp. Objectively speaking, these are not classically attractive people – they are not likely to be most people's first choice for nude models. However, their poses evoke a quiet self-assuredness and a peaceful pride that trumps any judgment that the viewer may initially cast upon them. In a sense, they represent the commoner, the everyman – we are certainly not runway models, so our silent shunning of these doughy people is a mere reflection of our own insecurities and our own social-conditioning. These people have nothing to prove. They are confident in their skin and challenge you to rattle their sense of self-worth.

A family one evening in a nudist camp, Pa.,
1965. Retrieved from http://masters-of-photography.com

This portrait of a stubbly young man with his hair in curlers, cigarette in hand is another example of a confident eccentric who challenges the viewers preconceptions. Taken in 1966, this was not a time where unconventional sexual expression was championed, let alone accepted. Once again, this is not the most comely of subjects, and one gets an almost voyeuristic feel when looking at this photograph. His cigarette hand almost seems to beckon us into his underground world, where edgy, taboo explorations of sexual identity are the secret handshake of an elite New York social club. In 2013, this image is hardly shocking, but in the '60s, I am sure it confounded many people.

A young man with curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C.
1966. Retrieved from http://masters-of-photography.com

The final photograph of Arbus's to examine in this post is one of a Mexican dwarf. With a hat on his head, a sleek mustache on his lip, a bottle of whiskey on his nightstand, and with a tangle of sheets about him in what could be a post-coital capture, this particular image speaks volumes. The man seems to really ham it up for camera, and he exudes an enviable kind of charisma. What this photo successfully does is make the extraordinary into something ordinary. Dwarfs, marginalized members of society, like the rest of us enjoy stylish hats, vices, sex, and other indulgences – and why shouldn't they? This photograph forces the viewer to accept this societal oddity as one of our own.

Mexican dwarf in his hotel room in N.Y.C.
1970. Retrieved from http://masters-of-photography.com

As stated before, the value and power of Arbus's work is its ability to bravely confront viewers with subject matters that may reside outside of our comfort zones, while all the while documenting unusual people in an uncompromising, yet somehow elegant fashion. Her photographs teach us to think outside of the box, to set aside our preconceptions about the abnormal and strange, and to take these people on their own terms. While Arbus's career and life were short-lived, her legacy in the context of photography will not soon fade away.

Works Cited

Lubow, Arthur. "Arbus Reconsidered." New York Times, September 14, 2003. Retrieved February 7, 2010.

DeCarlo, Tessa. "A Fresh Look at Diane Arbus." Smithsonian magazine, May 2004. Retrieved February 4, 2010.

Kozloff, Max. "Photography." The Nation, volume 204, pages 571-573, May 1, 1967.