The King and Queen of the Senior Citizen's Disco, NYC (1970)
The past is a foreign country they (quite often) say, and if that's so this superannuated old gallery visitor's passport has been well and truly stamped. For a double whammy the photographs were taken in an actual foreign country - USA. A place where, on the surface, things aren't all that different but where, if you visit, you'll soon learn that things are done very differently indeed.
Diane Arbus was born there, in New York in 1923, but she could see how odd a place it was. She had the kind of eye that a photographer needs (possibly more than flashy equipment). She was able to see the ordinary in the extraordinary and the extraordinary in the ordinary and operating, chiefly, in pre-gentrification New York City she had, coming at her from all angles it appears, one of the most colourful cast of characters that humanity has ever assembled in one place.
I almost wonder why she used black and white! The Hayward Gallery's ongoing, and self-consciously lower case titled, diane arbus:in the beginning (named so because it drills down on the first seven years of Arbus's short career) exhibition features more than one hundred photographs, arranged as if religious icons on evenly spaced vertical columns, by Arbus that give you an insight not so much into her mind (she took her own life in 1971, aged 48) but into her world.
Lady on a Bus, NYC (1957)
It's a world that looks, now, like a long time ago. Look at the way that lady on a bus is sat. All starchy and upright, not like the way we slouch these days. Look at the kid with his face blacked up, a rare sight in those days one would imagine but an almost unimaginable one now. Even the empty snack bar is strongly redolent of a bygone era and there's not even anybody in it.
Arriving fifteen years after Edward Hopper's Nighthawks at the Diner it is, if anything, even lonelier than that iconic painting. An absence illuminated. A story untold. A life, like Arbus's unfinished.
Kid in Black Face, NYC (1957)
Empty Snack Bar, NYC (1957)
Siamese Twins in a Carnival Tent, NJ (1960)
In many ways it's quite different, more touching, than a lot of the work on show. For the most part the focus is on the macabre, the bizarre, and the uncanny. Her New York is a city of mad men (Mad Men even), Mexican dwarves, Russian midgets, Jewish giants, female impersonators, and Siamese twins preserved in formaldehyde, presumably, and presented in tents for carnival crowds to ogle.
It's, quite clearly, not a world that was bothered by notions of political correctness. Biting a woman's breast at the fair was, apparently, as much fun as watching a man perforate his face with a selection of rather large pins. We're introduced to the jungle creep and the madman from Massachusetts. Arbus captures the blank expressions of performers and audience alike as she surveys the comings and goings on Coney Island.
It's, quite clearly, not a world that was bothered by notions of political correctness. Biting a woman's breast at the fair was, apparently, as much fun as watching a man perforate his face with a selection of rather large pins. We're introduced to the jungle creep and the madman from Massachusetts. Arbus captures the blank expressions of performers and audience alike as she surveys the comings and goings on Coney Island.
Little Man Biting Woman's Breast, NYC (1958)
The Human Pin Cushion, Ronald C. Harrison, NJ (1961)
Mood Meter Machine, NYC (1957)
It's a Boardwalk Empire of the human psyche but she's just as fascinated by sleepy children being carried, the window displays of stores, and images from film and television. If you think taking a photography of Bela Lugosi, appearing as Dracula, on TV is odd then my old mate Rob Uriarte used to take a screen shot of Noel Edmonds every Christmas Day!
To Arbus's credit she doesn't seem to objectify her subjects as much as she befriends them, metaphorically holds their hands. These were the days when people a little bit unusual operated outside society, either by choice or because they'd been shunned by it. Arbus turned her lens on to these people and showed them to be every bit as human as the more buckled up mainstream.
To Arbus's credit she doesn't seem to objectify her subjects as much as she befriends them, metaphorically holds their hands. These were the days when people a little bit unusual operated outside society, either by choice or because they'd been shunned by it. Arbus turned her lens on to these people and showed them to be every bit as human as the more buckled up mainstream.
Bela Lugosi as Dracula on Television (1958)
Rocks on Wheels, Disneyland, California (1962)
Disneyland is odd enough but behind the scenes, judging by the rocks on wheels, it's weirder still. It postcards a rare visit out West for Arbus. The bulk of her work, though is inspired by her travels in and around New York and its surrounding states. The couple arguing in Coney Island capture a snapshot in time, a stolen moment that would probably have soon been forgotten by all parties concerned.
It may not be a moment they'd want preserved for posterity although the Boy in a Cap at a Dance ought to be pleased with the proud, confident manner in which Arbus has caught him. She seems to make no distinction between showing people at their best, people at their worst, and people at their most peculiar. Truly, all life is here.
It may not be a moment they'd want preserved for posterity although the Boy in a Cap at a Dance ought to be pleased with the proud, confident manner in which Arbus has caught him. She seems to make no distinction between showing people at their best, people at their worst, and people at their most peculiar. Truly, all life is here.
Couple Arguing, Coney Island, NYC (1960)
Boy in a Cap at a Dance, NYC (1960)
Wax Museum Axe Murder, Coney Island, NYC (1959)
Death too. Arbus seems to be attracted not so much by the real horrors of life but the almost cartoon like world of monsters, wax museums, and freakshows. The Wax Museum Axe Murder looks pretty gory at first sight but, in truth, it's no less real than the quintet of happy kids in their monster masks posing on the stairs of an apartment block in New York.
Jack Dracula appears to be as real as his drink but he's not some ogre. He's just a guy with few tattoos, if anything he's ahead of his time. He'd not particularly stand out today such is the fashion for being inked. I guess, in Connecticut 1961, he looked a bit different. Arbus seems to be making an effort to show his normality as much as his 'abnormality'. Again, ahead of her time.
Five Members of the Monsters Fan Club, NYC (1961)
Jack Dracula at a Bar, New London, Connecticut (1961)
Boy Stepping off the Curb, NYC (1957-58)
Sadly, the pro-war marches, some carrying placards reading 'BOMB HANOI', that she photographed would also not look particularly out of their time now. Ten years ago - yes. Now, with the rise of Trump and nationalist fervour, sadly not.
But, in Arbus's photograph of a Man Yelling in Times Square (he looks a bit like Ian Paisley), you can see that flag waving, religious intolerance, and anger have always been part of the American story. Over here, in the UK (where, at the moment we can hardly take the piss anyway), some of us mistake that for the entire American story.
It's to the credit of Diane Arbus and those that followed in her wake that we can see that is most definitely not the case. Look at the serious expression of the Backwards Man in his Hotel Room (perfecting a frankly ludicrous, but amusing trick) and look at how much love she's bestowed upon her picture of the Identical Twins in Roselle and realise, as sadly Arbus herself could not it seemed, that there are many more good people in America than there are bad. It's just that one of the bad ones happens to be President.
"Nothing is ever the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before that I recognise" - Diane Arbus.
But, in Arbus's photograph of a Man Yelling in Times Square (he looks a bit like Ian Paisley), you can see that flag waving, religious intolerance, and anger have always been part of the American story. Over here, in the UK (where, at the moment we can hardly take the piss anyway), some of us mistake that for the entire American story.
It's to the credit of Diane Arbus and those that followed in her wake that we can see that is most definitely not the case. Look at the serious expression of the Backwards Man in his Hotel Room (perfecting a frankly ludicrous, but amusing trick) and look at how much love she's bestowed upon her picture of the Identical Twins in Roselle and realise, as sadly Arbus herself could not it seemed, that there are many more good people in America than there are bad. It's just that one of the bad ones happens to be President.
"Nothing is ever the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before that I recognise" - Diane Arbus.
Man Yelling in Times Square, NYC (1958)
Backwards Man in his Hotel Room, NYC (1961)
Identical Twins, Roselle, NJ (1966)
Thanks to Stedge for joining me for this show and, as so often proves the case, a not inconsiderable debrief in the taverns of Westminster afterwards.
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