Diane Arbus Revelations

[john_elder1]

I had a quick look[2+1/2 hours] at this new book today at Borders. It

is magnificent. I recently read the Arbus biography wriiten by

Patricia Bosworth and came to realize from the Bosworth book that the

Aperture Monograph shows a very small fraction of her work and a

conservative edit at that. After Reading the Bosworth biography It

was obvious that she was truly a prolific shooter and that the vast

majority of her work had not been published or shown. My curiousity

was peaked because the biography made clear she did alot of street

work,although not candid, and her work was also documentary in

nature. Today I found this huge monograph:"Diane Arbus Revelations"

that really does justice to all her work. As you may know she

commoted suicide in july 1971 at the age of 48. Her contemporaries,

who she frequenly saw were Avedon, Frank, Winogrand, Model, and a

host of others. Her subject matter was way out there for its time.

At her death a search of her darkroom uncovered 7000 medium format

contact sheets with negtive sleeves stapled to the contact in

chronological order. Another 500 roll of 35mm photos were found

later. She started shooting when she was 18, so the 7000 rolls were

shot in 30 years with most of the work in the last 15 years of her

life. You do the math, thats alot of shooting. After her death they

found and photographed each different subject she had ever printed

[thats one shot per print on a roll;12 prints per roll]There were 52

contact prints,12 images each contact ptint.This new book is great. I

was never a real Arbus fan from viewing the Aperture Monograph. It

was only after reading the Bosworth biography that I wanted to see

the majority of her work.

"Diane Arbus Revelations" fits the bill. I highly suggest readin the

Bosworth biography and taking a hard look at Revelations. The work AND

the work ethic is of the highest quality. It is very intersting to

find out how impassioned, motivated, consumed, and hard working a

master photographer must be. Her work ethic rivals or surpasses Ed

Weston. She was consumed by photography. There are MANY reasons to

read this book,even if you think you don't like her work. I have

posted this here because it belongs in the street and documentary

section as opposed to the book section.

[ellis_vener_photography]

What most people don't realize is that Diane Arbus and her husband Allen ran a very

successful advertising and editorial fashion studio together for about 12-14 years

[leslie_cheung]

Wow! someone else think the Bosworth book is not half bad.

[link]

I had never been very familiar with Arbus' work until I went to the Los Angeles County

Museum a few weeks ago to see the revelations show.

 

Wow.

 

The book is very good, but does not do justice to the very fine quality prints that she

produced. She was a very fine printer and really made a lot of these photographs

work through the work she did in the darkroom.

 

I also came to the opinion that her best work was done when she started shooting

with a twin lens reflex. This is not so much as the size of the film, but the perspective

of shooting hand held with the waist level finder. (lowering the camera position). I

wanted to go out and buy a rolleiflex!

 

I also noticed that she seemed to use an on camera flash on most of her

photographs, even the day exterior photographs, as a fill light. Given the amount of

film she shot --- that's one heck of a pile of flash bulbs!

 

If you ever get a chance to see this exhibit, it's extraordinary.

 

-bruce

[lkv]

I agree 100 % ! This is a great book (although not that new ;-)<br>

Lenny<br>

<a href="http://afimage.com">AFimage.com</a>

[._._z]

bg, she had a big honking "potato masher" flash mounted next to her TLRs (Rolleiwide and

Mamiya), but she tended to use it with a very light touch outdoors.

[kent_tolley2]

I had always loved her shot of the boy with toy hand grenade but never studied her until the Bosworth book. I thought the Bosworth biography told the story of her life in a kind of documentary fashion: facts and figures without much poetry, but I wanted to know the general outline of her life; her causes and her issues so it was a quick and worthwhile read. Because of her ending I was depressed by it. I would think becoming as accomplished an artist as she did with that unique eye for the unusual and the craft to capture her vision on film would have made her feel fulfilled. I guess life isn?t always that easy. If anything her life proves you can be a good artist, even a successful artist and still feel bad about living. Think of Marilyn Monroe or Vincent, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton.

 

The new book "Revelations", done mostly at the loving hands of her daughter Doon and curators from the SFMOMA and is altogether a different story. It shows her proof sheets (lots of them) so you can see her thinking to arrive at the final print. E.g., the entire roll that culminates in "Child with a Toy Hand Grenade." This is only one. There must be 15 or 20 proof sheets! You can see her walking through Manhattan and Washington Square Park, a few blocks from where Kertesz must have lived. A picture of her by Winogrand working Central park with Mamiyaflex TLR and big strobe and a Narcissus in her mouth. There is, to me, an amazingly sexy self-portrait of her pregnant in underpants with a 4x5 on a tripod in front of a bedroom mirror during WW II. She is carrying Doon. A family picture of her at 6 with her older brother Howard Nemerov, who would go on to become a poet of some renown in the academic circles on the East Coast. And it shows pages from her journal: unending lists of things she wanted to shoot so you can follow where her creative spirit led her. When she wasn?t shooting she was thinking what next to shoot. She was a very hard working photographer. Aside from the photographs, which are printed nicely, there are essays by others about her, the chronology of her life, her darkroom, even her formulary. Often her daughter will use something from her journal on the page opposite a photograph which is Arbus herself speaking directly to you about her craft. This is a rare glimpse into the mind of the artist over her entire life. Arbus? words are full of the poetry that I missed in the Bosworth bio. Her Project Plan for the Guggenheim grant, which she won, is given here as an artistic credo and what she planned to photograph and did. She knows precisely what she wants to photograph and what she wants to show you. Her letters and journals gives you insight into how she worked; what she loved and what she despised. She is the most articulate photographer.

 

This book was put together by her daughter who had access to Diane?s entire estate: photographs by her and of her, letters and journals, childhood school projects, high school autobiographies, and dreams. It offers another dimension not normally included in a book of photographs. Here you have a personal as well as an artistic view into the life of the artist. She seems such a beautiful loser like many of her subjects. The winners may be smug in their houses on the hill, but the beautiful losers really interested her. I think she thought they embraced more of the total human condition. She is remarkably devoid of judgment. I admire her immensely.

 

The traveling exhibition began in San Francisco and is worth a visit but has the same photos as the book. They even have her enlarger.

 

Show is in Houston 6/27/04 - 8/29

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC 2/28/05 - 5/29/05

then on to Essen, Germany and London.

[tim_atherton9]

there was an interesting review in the New Yorker a few weeks ago

 

http://newyorker.com/critics/books/?031013crbo_books

[john_elder1]

Concerning Arbus's printing. There is a section in the book Revelations entitled "Darkroom" written by the printer who subsequently has printed 100% of her prints singe her death What he discovered in trying to match her printing technique was that she NEVER, I mean NEVER dodged or burned a print. They were all printed staight in a 2 bath developer. The printer, whose name I don't remember at least implied that it was frustrating printing straight when he could have made much more beautiful prints using all techniques available. However the powers that be wanted the look of the "new" prints to reamin faithful to her original prints. The printer said her negs were really full scale with much shadow detail due to 2 bath development of the negs in Buetol[i think thats the name of the 2 bath developer used] I hope that is as interersting for all you out there as it was to me.

[kent_tolley2]

This is so interesting. My personal experience of the prints in the museum show was they were not brilliant by any means. They don't show much more than you can see in the book. Frankly, I was dissappointed in the prints face-to-face. I had previously seen a print of the "Boy with straw hat waiting to march in the pro-war parade, NYC 1967" and the print quality was remarkable. She is a shooter and a Master Shooter in my book. I think she learned everything she knew about dark room from Alan Arbus before he left her to become Sydney, the recurring guest actor who played the psychiatrist on M.A.S.H. I don't think she ever changed the formulas or the technique. The darkroom is not her strong suit. The streets and stories and people of New York are.

[john_elder1]

One last post from me. The Bosworth biography made crystal clear that Arbus absolutely HATED fashion photography, but it paid the bills. The reading also clearly indicates Arbus had low regard for her own photography. She died not knowing she was Great! What can you say?

She sure produced a tremendous and influential body of work for her short unbelievably creative life. What can you say?

[kent_tolley2]

"I want to photograph the considerable ceremonies of our present because we tend while living here and now to perceive only what is random and barren and formless about it. While we regret that the present is not like the past and despair of its ever becoming the future, its innumerable inscrutable habits lie in wait for their meaning. I want to gather them, like somebody's grandmother putting up preserves, because they will have been so beautiful."

[enrico__]

I just found a review by Elsa Dorfman concerning the Arbus Biography by Bosworth.

 

http://www.elsa.photo.net/arbus2.htm

 

Give it a read. I found the last 3 paragraphs interesting (from "I keep wanting to rewrite..." etc).

[b_kosoff]

Her daughter Amy, is a photographer, and while she's talented and unique in

her own work, she follows in her mom's foot steps in that she also shoots

"street/documentary". She's represented in NYC by the June Bateman

Gallery. For fans of D Arbus, a look at A Arbus's work might be interesting.

[grant_.]

hey, is that in your contract that you have to mention your gallery every few days? just curious...