Page 48 - Studio International - March 1974

world. In the public faces of ordinary suppress, or at least reduce, moral and
people there is the greatest sensory queasiness'. As 'a self-willed
discrepancy between the intended test of hardness' audiences seek out
ideal and the actual. In Blonde Girl the art which is likely to prove most
with Shiny Lipstick, NYC 1967, for troubling. In this diagnosis the Arbus
instance, the right-hand side of the phenomenon applies generally to
girl's face is as perfect as the heavily sophisticated audiences in urbanized
made-up girl could wish : to the left capitalist countries. Without doubt
though, shadow and raking light this condition exists in Western art,
distort the features and reveal a pitted especially in avant-garde cinema and
skin texture. She can achieve the sort to some degree in photography. The
of generalizing caricature typical of Arbus pictures can be placed here,
Grosz at his best, as in the but this interpretation depends on
extraordinary Man Dancing with a accepting her limited characterization
Large Woman, NYC 1967, but she is of the pictures as the whole truth. She
also capable of the petty coarseness does 'show people who are pathetic,
of A Jewish Couple Dancing, NYC pitiable, as well as horrible, repulsive',
1963 where in a parody of a party but she shows a lot more besides.
photograph the smiling man shows It is not simply a question of a
his discoloured and malformed teeth unique sensibility imposing its
and his partner her craggy elbow. As style on heterogeneous subject matter
she says :'Our whole guise is like but of a programmatic interpretation
giving a sign to the world to think of of American life, amounting to a
us in a certain way but there's a perverse parody of a social structure.
point between what you want people It is a hierarchical society which she
to know about you and what you can't identifies, and it is dominated by an
help people knowing about you'. It imposing set of stone-faced
is as though she is obsessed by the matriarchs. At one level we have
peculiarities which arise from this Woman with a Fur Collar on the
distance between invention and Street, NYC 1968, the visual equal
effect, and having established this as to any of Curtis's lapidary Indians, and
her particular insight documented it A Young Brooklyn Family Going for a Sunday Outing, New York City 1966 further up the social scale the massive
where and whenever it was to be confidence of Woman with a Veil
found. The ethical system which demonstrate some remarkable stylish cut of the coats but the girls on Fifth Avenue, NYC 1968. Many
might be expected to attend or even contrast bearing on the gulf between stand lumpish and puzzled staring of the other women she photographs
to precede such an insight appears to intention and actuality. An epic in this morosely at the tilted camera. In a may be unsettling, near savage in one
be quite absent ; what results easily genre is A Young Brooklyn Family grotesque parody of elegant hauteur or two cases, but they are positive and
looks like a promiscuous involvement Going for a Sunday Outing, NYC 1966 a half-naked transvestite decked in certain in their femininity where the
in grotesquerie. in which the young husband seems to feathers and pearls looks arrogantly Arbus men are almost without
Arbus was attracted to performers. have stepped leadenly out of past the camera. Woman in her exception pathetic and ludicrous. If
Many of her characters are public Dorothea Lange's 1930s and his wife Negligee, NYC 1966 features an not actually intimidated many of the
figures whether they like it or not. The from the aftermath of Cleopatra. ideal bedroom and an artful men dress and act as women. If they
dwarves and the Jewish giant would She pictures those moments in our diaphanous garment but there is no appear in a conventional male role
be objects of curiosity anywhere and culture when self-images are under avoiding the dilapidation of the flesh they are rendered preposterous; her
the same applies to the twins and the strain, where the young man and his and a sadness of age. It is as though patriots are gauche, ugly and stupid
triplets she photographs. Less public wife labouring under the exigencies Arbus was composing variations on (Boy with a Straw Hat, Patriotic
perhaps, but equally objects of of the present still retain some brief the themes of advertising, switching Young Man and Man in an Indian
curiosity, are the transvestites and hold on a prepared and public face. around the personnel, reenacting the Headdress respectively).
hermaphrodites; this accounts for In some of her work, then, she does time-honoured scenes with an It is a world turned upside down
their evident composure in front of her no more than to record the visible amateur and uncertain cast. where the truck driver paints his nails
camera. At times this composure is signs of certain cultural incongruities. As improvisations on well- and wears a slip whilst the
genial and obliging : the Tattooed More usually, however, she forces the established photographic types these Lady at a Masked Ball with Two
Man at a Carnival, Md. 1970 knew pace as a parodist of stock pictures are unquestionably Roses on her Dress, NYC 1967 has
what was expected of him, and the photographic types. Her pictures interesting, and Diane Arbus's the build and the charm of an all-in
Hermaphrodite and a Dog in a of babies are revealing ; not only does alertness to the 'fantastic' ensures wrestler. As a composite picture of
Carnival Trailer, Md. 1970 could she favour close-ups but uses a sort that a surrealist strangeness of American people it is a mocking
hardly have been more charming and of directed Leonardesque lighting setting or material is constantly in denial of the American archetypes we
gracious. In fact, through this whole which gives them a sombre plasticity evidence. Yet other photographers have learned to recognize, of the
compilation of portraits there is a unusual in the genre. A child crying, NJ have been as effective in their parody weathered masculinity in the
curious inversion of normality ; the 1967 is a counter-example to all those and quite as alert as this without Westerns and the cigarette ads, of the
more her people are drawn from pleasant children of the professional achieving even a fraction of Arbus's trim Beauty refreshed by a Coke. Pop
everyday life the more disturbed they photographer and the gifted amateur; fame and notoriety. Exhibitions of art went some way in the promotion
appear. the forehead close to the lens shoots these pictures in America have of parody; it ensured that it could be
Merely by being photographed her upwards and shadow smears the lips. enjoyed an enormous success, the an acceptable mode in contemporary
subjects became, even if only for a Before turning to this sort of art sort of audience figures which can art, but it dealt in fragments, in
moment or two, performers. It seems Diane Arbus worked as a fashion scarcely be accounted for by citing a pastiches and enigmas. Now in this
that she hardly ever took pictures of photographer and the work in this growing interest in photography. collection the scope of 60s irony has
people unawares; they were allowed collection shows that she attended Both Max Kozloff and Susan Sontag produced a sort of totality in Diane
time to arrange themselves according closely and critically to its modes. In have devoted long reviews to the Arbus's perversely structured world.
to their own conceptions of their her commercial work she pictured the current show. Sontag in particular Equally these are pictures for an art
roles. An undernourished Teenage ideal and here she pictures the after- tried to give some sort of explanation context ; for a context, that is, which
Couple on Hudson Street, NYC 1963 effects of such myth making, as the for the attention which these pictures has gone through an unprecedentedly
pose half heartedly as true lovers and advertised product passes into have claimed. They are nothing more, hermetic phase of art for artists with
in Man and a Boy on a Bench in common circulation. Two Girls in she argues, than a part of that modern society nowhere. With Diane Arbus's
Central Park, NYC 1962 whilst the Identical Raincoats, Central Park, quest to discover a new threshold of collected pictures contemporary
boy stares with open curiosity at the NYC 1969 alludes clearly to an tolerance in art : 'The photographs society re-enters the avant-garde
camera the man has had time to advertising idyll : it has all the offer an occasion to demonstrate that forum to massive effect.
deploy a whole repertoire of ingredients of a picture by Clarence life's horror can be faced without Ian Jeffrey
debonaire gestures. Generally she White, the slender forms of the girls squeamishness'. She thinks that the (The Diane Arbus exhibition is at the
shows isolated individuals and when and the dappled lighting of the pictures epitomize 'a leading tendency Hayward Gallery, London,
she does show people together it is to parkland trees, the still discernible of high art in capitalist countries : to 27 March-2 June 1974.)