By: JS

JS — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 00:48:25 +0000

I agree with you and am grateful you were able to write what I was thinking (well similar sentiments) so clearly.
And I was glad to be able to see this exhibit a second time, and in New York.

By: Chas

Chas — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 00:19:55 +0000

Hey J –
Nice take on Arbus. Portland has “Family Albums,” a considerably lesser Arbus show on view right now, so I’ve been thinking about her lately and reconsidering some collegiate opinions on the Iconic One.
I have to imagine that it was thrilling when Arbus first showed at MoMA. It was a wonderful break in the history of photography – her emphasis on the grotesque and abject, as well as her static compositions and hard, frontal lighting. I mean, Ansel Adams was still active when she was doing her best work.
I also believe that she was a deeply empathetic person, and as she matured, saw America changing radically with the sharp rise of freeway culture, post-war commercialism and boosterism, and the burgeoning suburb boom. Individuality gave way to the model family, save for archetypal, chest-thumbing Ab-Exer’s. As I work in a soulless yuppie restaurant at the moment, I silently squeal for joy when a dreadlocked, flamboyantly dressed, or otherwise ‘deviant” soul wanders into the restaurant. I imagine Arbus felt this on a macro scale and used the camera as an excuse and all-access pass to visit America’s vanishing underbelly (she being from an uppercrust family).
That being said, I think she was a very uneven photographer with good sensibilities and amazingly poor technical skill. The show here in town has several of her contact sheets on view, and it’s amazing that any printer was able to pull good photographs from the underexposed, sloppy negatives. There was a photo of a midget actor that I had never seen before (not the tough Latino with a cigar) – I would have sent any student back to the drawing board with that unacceptable result. (This was no Robert Frank rule-breaking Modernist conceit. This was “yikes, this is bad”).
I also believe that if you cull her total strong images (publishers and book editors love to clutter her work up), they are relatively few. She didn’t leave behind a terribly strong, prolific ouevre. That’s one reason in the mid-90’s the estate “discovered” the mentally disabled series, chose their favorites, and published them. That series struck me as exploitative, sensational, and not very good in any artistic sense.
OK, I’m cluttering up your comment thingy here and I have my own forum to write this stuff. I have the Arbus bio bedside but have not cracked it yet. Her work was interesting, her work was major, her work was flawed. But she definitely changed the game. Peace out,
Chas

Comments on: self-portraits/untitled

By: JS

By: Chas