Gelatin silver print
Not on view
Arbus approached photographic portraiture as a two-way street, through which a relationship is established between the viewer (who has taken the place of the photographer) and the subject. To experience the picture is to enter into that relationship, whose candor and depth may be assessed in just the same way that we gauge the sincerity of others every day—and as they judge ours.
Many of Arbus's subjects are outcasts of one sort or another, and many viewers are at first repelled or merely fascinated by her pictures. Only after these defenses are set aside are we able to see that the vulnerability of her people invites us to recognize our own.
Apart from a handful of pictures, including this one, Arbus did not address political issues directly. But her unsparing frankness in confronting human frailty is one of the signal achievements of American art in the dark days of the Vietnam War.
The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 253.
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Diane Arbus
American, 1923–1971 84 works onlineUnlike most people, who “go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience,” the “freaks” that interested Diane Arbus “were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.
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