Diane Arbus in the Noir Post-War Era in New York
Diane Arbus is considered by many as one of the most important photographers of the 20th Century. Her work emerged during the post-WWII era, when artists like Robert Frank, William Klein, and Weegee were interested in capturing a darkened view of Western society. The work of this group, and especially the images captured by Arbus, influenced the history of photography and brought new visual approaches to the field of street photography. Arbus’ career as a street photographer lasted only ten years, and it started during the late 50’s when she began visiting seedy hotels, public parks, and a morgue, among other venues to take portraits of characters that were often unseen or marginalized. Most of her photographs were misunderstood during her time and considered by many as disturbing, mostly because these images diverge from the common canons of morality and “normality” in the late 1950’s. For instance, she became acquainted with many transvestites and people from the circus, who were often discriminated against during that time. Arbus captured in her portraits many subjects whose lives weren’t previously looked at so fearlessly. She often spent long hours and even days with many of her subjects. Some of those images became a valuable anthropological record of New York City during the 1950s and 1960s.
Arbus was originally from New York City and found most of her subjects initially in the city, and later in Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. After collaborating with her husband, Allan Arbus, on fashion and their family business, Arbus began taking photographs on her own. She photographed people in the metropolis, at carnivals, at drag-balls, in hotels, and in many other places that she discovered. In her street photography in New York, Arbus explored “known geography and foreign land,” while creating new narratives about the lives of characters that were not acknowledged by other photographers of her time (Lubow 64). In the words of the photographer: “I believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photograph them” (Armstrong, 37). Arbus’ work displays an array of portraits of couples, nudists, people on the streets, twins, families of various kinds, and carnival performers such as tattooed men and sword-swallowers, among other subjects.
Her photographs not only register an historical time and art phenomena during the post-war era in New York City, but also render a form of contemporary anthropology, where time and history are precisely documented within a squared picture frame. As Susan Sontag describes photography: “To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge.” In doing so, many artists during that time created imprints of their lives in the city during the post-war era.
Arbus and some of her contemporaries, like Weegee and Edward Hopper, captured in their work the transformation of the city through photography and painting. After the 1930s and 1940s, “New York shaded at the edges into a noir town of irony and delusion” (Chapman, 267). Many American artists adopted a darker look into their subjects to express their preoccupation with existential aspects of the human condition. Their focus shifted from glamorous buildings and the skyline into people on the streets, and through this act of looking closer, the private and public spheres started to blend in the process of image making. For example, Weegee, who worked as a freelance news photographer in Manhattan during the 40s became well-known for some of the most sensationalist pictures during those years. In his work, the camera becomes almost pervasive by capturing a crime scene or a murder from the previous night. Some critics believe that Weegee’s work had an influence on Arbus. Nevertheless, she was not interested in the aftermath of a tragic event or a crime but in capturing the obscure nature of things while they were alive and present in everyday life events. In that sense, her images are more inquisitive and psychological
Arbus’ photographs transport the viewer to a solitary space such as many paintings by Hopper, who often portrays characters in urban settings that evoke loneliness and estrangement. In the case of Arbus, her subjects are framed often in the middle of the composition looking at the camera. This self-reflexive effect creates a dialogue between the photographer and the subject, between what has been said and what remains silent, while encompassing a kind of ethereal mirror effect. Arbus chose to work with a camera that had a square format, where the background cannot predominate as it does in horizontal formats. Also, by using this camera, Arbus could maintain eye contact with her subjects: “She would look down to frame the image and look back at the subject” (Dorfman 7). This powerful ritual is a constant in most of Arbus’ works and articulates a space to explore and reinvent different forms of identity and history. It is also an opportunity to look deeper at things that were not acknowledged previously.
Bosworth Patricia. Diane Arbus. Norton & Company, Inc. New York 1984. Print
Chapman Sharpe. New York Nocturne: The city after dark in literature, painting, and photography, 1850-1950. Princeton University Press. 2008. Print Dorfman, Elsa. “Where anonymous was a woman.” The Women’s Review of Books, Vol 13, No4, ( January 1996). pp 17
Goldman, Judith. “Diane Arbus: The Gap between Intention and Effect.” Art Journal, XXXIV /1. Vol 34, N 1 ( Autumn, 19740), pp 30-35
Lubow, Arthur. “Diane Arbus Revelations of Life.” USA today, January 20004. pp 64-71
Sontang, Susan. On Photography. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977. Print.
