Even though the recent Diane Arbus retrospectives were not shown in Paris, Curator Mart Gili, Director of the French capital’s Jeu de Paume museum, made a very unusual selection when planning the current exhibition, on display until February 5, 2012 before traveling across Europe: Fotomuseum, Winterthur (3 march – 27 may 2012). Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (22 june – 24 september 2012). Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam (26 october 2012 – 13 january 2013).

Along with the Diane Arbus Estate, the curator selected 200 photos, twenty rarely seen, if not previously unreleased. The prints, half of which were genuine time period prints, the other half executed under the author’s critical eye, emanate from the Estate and 41 private collections. It is a particularly authentic retrospective, showing prints that reflect the spirit of the author’s work.

It is no surprise then that the exhibition’s introduction clearly describes Diane Arbus’ work method, for this is exactly what inspired the curator as she made her rigorous selection. The installation includes five rooms presenting pictures with nothing other than titles, places, and dates. Spectators can only wonder about their biographical or political context, forced to concentrate on, above all, the aesthetics of the result. As Diane Arbus once wrote “A picture is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know… I really believe there are things people wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t photographed them.”

The two other rooms, paradoxically, presents a plethora of documents, reviews, contact sheets, diary notes… to help spectators better appreciate her approach. To try and understand, still today, how in 15 years she could build a collection that “revolutionized” photography and shaped the ensuing generation of photographers.

In the text entitled “the difference between intention and effect”, she writes:

“You see someone in the street and what you notice, essentially, is what goes wrong. It is already extraordinary that we each have our particularities. Not content with what we have, we try and create others. Our entire attitude gives a signal to the world to indicate how we want to be seen, but there is a world of difference between what you want others to know and what you can’t prevent them from knowing. That is what I always called the difference between intention and effect. What I mean is that if you observe reality close up, and you manage to really discover it, reality becomes unreal.” This kind of human anthropology comes from her studies: secondary school at the Ethical Culture School and Fieldston School, photography studies in 1954 with Alexey Brodovitch after marrying at 18, then with Lisette Model between 1955 and 1957 before launching her personal career. Her first pictures published in Esquire in 1960 were entitled “The Vertical Journey”. She then began working freelance for Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Show and The London Sunday Times, producing portraits and picture stories with written texts.

In 1962, she began working with a medium format Rolleiflex “to eliminate the picture grain and begin discovering the true texture of things”. The medium format would help her define a “classical, formal, surprisingly easy approach that would define her work. Her human anthropology emerged through the “rites, manners and customs in America”. She will travel the country discovering and photographing all sorts of places and events: contests, festivals, public or private gatherings, people dressed in their professional outfits, hotel lobbies, show hall dressing rooms, private living rooms that, according to her, “are the formidable ceremonies of our times.” “They are our symptoms and our monuments” she wrote in her application for a Guggenheim grant. “I just want to save them, because what is strange, ceremonial, and banal, will become legendary.”

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

Exhibition
Diane Arbus
until February 5, 2012
Jeu de Paume
1 Place de la Concorde
75008 Paris
+33 (0)1 47 03 12 50
Tuesday: 12-21h
Wednesday-Friday: 12-19h
Saturday and Sunday: 10-19h

Publication
Diane Arbus: A Chronology (Aperture, New York, 2011)
French edition : Diane Arbus : Une Chronologie
Éditions de La Martinière, Jeu de Paume, 2011