diane arbus: aberration does have talent maga salati
irudia
What is normal? What isn't? What, who can be considered to be a monster? And what can't? Where are the limits? Who set the parameters? When? Where? In connection with Diane Arbus, the words “normal” and “monster” make no sense. Above all, she didn't discriminate between them or make concessions. “Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child” is what Norman Mailer said. A clear, striking statement. It describes this woman's way of working very clearly. It's true that a lot has been written about Arbus'es photography and it's often spoken about but, at first, don't pay any attention to the documentation: we recommend you look at one of her images. It's an important, tough experience and psychologically complex. It leaves nobody indifferent. Humanity pours out of her work. As Arts journalist Marion Magid wrote, “Once you look at one of Arbus'es works, if you don't look away, you're involved”. In other words, you're left with no choice.

Apparently, Gertrude Stein warned Picasso: “At first, all art makes you angry, until the public accepts it”. Arbus was interested in people who society classified as "marginal": people with mental problems, twins, giants, dwarfs, transvestites, circus phenomena, nudists, prostitutes ... She was sure that she would go down in history as "the photographer of freaks". And she resented that certainty. In fact, she thought that all the portraits she took suggested secret experiences that we carry inside us. She just wanted to do one thing: portray the people she found interesting because of their stories or faces. And what these people told her delighted her, not only because of what they told her, but also because of what they took away from her personally. When they started talking, they broke down barriers: race, age, hopes and madness disappeared. It stimulated her most profound intimacy and, although it didn't rape that, it did sanctify it. There was a private relationship between her and the people she photographed: a secret exchange. Looking for something secret brought with it something of even greater value. This secrecy brought with it a belief in mystery and sacredness and even helped her to see a connection between Jewish giants and dwarfs. "I don't put my life at risk, but I do put my reputation and virtue at risk ... even though I don't have much of that left (laughter). We all suffer. Being a single person means having a boundary", she once said.

Diane Arbus

(New York, 14th Marc, 1923 - Greenwich (NY) 26th July, 1971) She grew up in a rich, protected and isolated environment in the New York of the 1930's. She went to one of the best Manhattan progressive schools and in 1941, and the age of 18, she got married. She picked up her first camera when she was around twenty because her husband was learning photography in the armed forces. Her first daughter was born in 1945. In 1946, even though she had no interest in fashion, she opened a fashion photography studio with her husband. In 1957 she left fashion and started to work in her own, particular manner. She tried to make a living by taking portraits in 1958, and, to do this, she chose people with unusual lifestyles living on the margins of society. Her work was shown at a huge exhibition at New York's MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) and was praised at the Venice Biennial. That was in 1971, a few months after she had committed suicide.