I have been going through the great Diane Arbus book Revelations tonight. Have had this book for about 2 years now and must have looked at it over 2 dozen times but damn if I am not still amazed by the work.
I keep flipping pages and thinking F-CK that's a great photograph! and F-CK another one and then SH-T how did she get that shot? Some of the work she did not even bother to print is amazing, stuff I would have printed in a second, never saw the light of day for decades until this book was printed. Diane Arbus was so good it's just scary. Has anyone been better than her? I don't think so!
For many years I felt her photographs exploited her subjects but I no longer think that. She photographed people in a way that was not flattering but that showed an inner truth about that person. In fact the photographs speak to truths in all of us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kent Tolley , Mar 08, 2004; 02:57 a.m.
The new book "Revelations", done mostly at the loving hands of her daughter Doon 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 Winnogrand working Central park with Mamiyaflex TLR and strobe and a Narcissus in her mouth. There is, to me, an amazingly sexy picture 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 wasnÂ’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's words are full of the poetry that I missed in the Bosworth bio. Her Project Plan for the Guggenheim grant, which she won, is 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.
Since this book was put together by her daughter who had access to Diane’s entire estate, photographs of her and by her, letters and journals, childhood school projects, high school autobiographies, dreams it offers another dimension not normally included in a book of photographs. Here you have an artistic as well as a personal view into the life of the artist. She seems such a beautiful loser like many of her subjects. The winners may be smug and satisfied with their lot and happy in their houses somewhere 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.
