Diane Arbus

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Diane Arbus, “Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C.

1962,” gelatin silver print, printed by Neil Selkirk, 20" x 16" (gift of Sandra Simpson, 2016; 2016/593; © Estate of Diane Arbus)

Many of the unsettling portraits Diane Arbus shot in the New York area during the 1960s seem as familiar as old family snapshots. But hers are the black sheep, the eccentric relatives we may not discuss much. But every so often, their images tumble out of an album, and their stories are told again. 

Arbus photographed strippers, drag queens and circus performers – including a sword swallower, a bearded lady and a burly man covered in tattoos. But many of her subjects seem, deep down, rather ordinary. 

Somehow, though, when caught by her camera, they seem odd, at least for the 1960s. A beauty mark, a funny hat, an unusual expression or wind-blown hair, when filtered through her lens, somehow changed them. They became strange, sometimes even menacing. But were these people, really so different in their day-to-day lives, or were they simply her unwitting actors? 

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Diane Arbus, “Tattooed man at a carnival, Md.

1970,” gelatin silver print, printed by Neil Selkirk, 20" × 16" (gift of Robin and David Young, 2016; 2016/932; © Estate of Diane Arbus)

These portraits remind me of works by the late photographer Lynne Cohen, an American who settled in Ottawa and then Montreal, earning a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. To great international acclaim, Cohen photographed rooms in homes, offices, factories and spas. They never included people. 

But Cohen knew how to frame and light these rooms to make them feel malevolent, although she claimed she never altered the position of objects in the spaces. But I wonder, were those rooms actually strange, or were they simply the equivalent of the unwitting subjects that Arbus photographed?

An exhibition of 90 black-and-white prints by Arbus is circulating across Canada. Organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario from its cache of 582 works, it goes on view May 11 at Contemporary Calgary. Diane Arbus: Photographs, 1956-1971 also stopped at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where I saw it.

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Diane Arbus, “Three female impersonators, N.Y.C.

1962,” gelatin silver print, 11" x 14" (anonymous gift, 2016; 2016/757; © Estate of Diane Arbus)

A favourite image is Retired man and his wife at home in a nudist camp one morning, N.J., 1963. This is a shot of an ordinary looking, somewhat pudgy aging couple sitting in a living room, smiling for the camera. 

How did Arbus get them to relax? She was nude too, although we don’t see this. But it makes one wonder what else she did to encourage people to pose.

We have seen, time and again, the Arbus classic, Identical Twins, Roselle N.J., 1968. It is hard to think of the two girls as anything but otherworldly devil-spawn. But look more closely. They are truly ordinary children. What on earth did their parents think of that photo? 

Years later, the shot inspired the resurrected-from-the-dead twin sisters who roamed the halls of the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s horror film The Shining. The movie twins were art imitating art. They were also art changing art. Now, when we look at the Arbus photo, we may see Kubrick’s far more terrifying children begging frightened, young Danny to come play. The Arbus photo has aged in a way its creator could not have foreseen.

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Diane Arbus, “Triplets in their bedroom, N.J.

1963,” gelatin silver print, printed by Neil Selkirk, 20" x 16" (gift of Robin and David Young, 2016; 2016/869; © Estate of Diane Arbus)

The touring show includes a few photographs of developmentally delayed adults and children playing or just hanging out. Did Arbus exploit them? Opinions are divided. Would they have been able to give true informed consent to be photographed? They likely would never have visualized that, half a century later, people in Calgary or Montreal would be staring at their images, making all kinds of interpretations. Still, the photos could have been more exploitative. They are a reverse of her other ones – in this case, she makes her subjects seem more familiar. 

Arbus had a career that lasted only 15 years, from 1956 until her death by suicide in 1971, when she was 48. Yet she is one of the most significant American artists of her era. What if she had lived longer? What new images would she have created? ■

Diane Arbus: Photographs, 1956-1971 at Contemporary Calgary from May 11 to Sept. 17, 2023. 

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