Diane Arbus Overview

Diane Arbus is called the "Wizard of Odds" because her photographic subjects have included circus freaks, nudists, mentally retarded adults, eccentrics, homeless people, orgiasts, and outcasts. Her work has been dubbed "grotesque," "hateful," and "in bad taste." Norman Mailer stated the... [more]

Diane Arbus is called the "Wizard of Odds" because her photographic subjects have included circus freaks, nudists, mentally retarded adults, eccentrics, homeless people, orgiasts, and outcasts. Her work has been dubbed "grotesque," "hateful," and "in bad taste." Norman Mailer stated the prevailing sentiment about her most succinctly: "Giving a camera to Diane Arbus is like giving a hand grenade to a baby." The fact that so many interpret her approach as sheer tabloid exploitation may have something to do with our sensationalizing, voyeuristic, blood-and-guts-obsessed culture. Looking at Arbus's work from a less reactionary perspective, one realizes that she stripped bare before her lens those very qualities that society seeks to hide: isolation, depression, discomfort, and vulnerability. Even photographs of "normal" people portray moments of freakish tension. In "A Young Brooklyn Family Going for a Sunday Outing, N.Y.C.," the childrens' expressions are disturbingly ghoulish, while the parents appear inexpressibly sad. Arbus had a unique perspective on the abnormal, saying, "Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks are born with their trauma. They've already passed it. They're aristocrats." Arbus' work surely mirrors her own inner struggles, for she moved in and out of depression most of her life. She grew up on Central Park West, the daughter of a wealthy department store owner. At age 19 she married Allan Arbus and together they formed a successful business as fashion photographers. Only after her separation from her husband in 1957 did her artistic life take off. She produced an amazing volume of work and sustained herself with magazine jobs for the likes of Esquire and Harper's Bazaar. In 1966 Arbus contracted hepatitis, which contributed to more severe depression and her eventual suicide in 1971. Her posthumous show at the MoMA in 1972 was one of the most popular photography exhibits since Edward Steichen's "The Family of Man." [show less]