Arbus Retrospective Draws Criticism

[Arthurwg]

The gigantic Diane Arbus retrospective currently at New York's Park Avenue Armory (455 prints, Through Aug. 17) has drawn negative criticism in the widely-read art blog Hyperallergic (June 23, 2025). According to the writer, Hakim Bishara, "The era of Diane Arbus' cold classist gaze is dead. It belongs to an America that no longer exists, and to a school of thought that has run its course. Her "freak" photographs of disabled, disfigured and disenfranchised people she ambushed with a camera in asylums and hospitals were morally challenged when she made them...and have only soured over the decades."

The article goes on to criticize the curatorial choices made, and even claims that there was an attempt to prevent critical discussion of Arbus's legacy.

I find this is strong stuff when aimed at one of the iconic photographers and bodies of work of the recent past. What do you think?

 

[armadsen]

For those that want to read the referenced article: https://hyperallergic.com/1022003/massive-diane-arbus-park-avenue-armory-exhibition-does-so-little/

 

[AnselMortensen]

Bloggers gonna blog.

 

[chuckroast]

There is nothing more pretentious than people inflicting contemporary pieties on past art. It is self-involved virtue signaling by the current day critic

Let Arbus be Arbus. For real criticism read Kimball and New Criterion.

 

[MTGseattle]

I agree with cuckroast. It gets annoying to hear the phrase "we couldn't make that today." applied to so much stuff. I even caught an interview with the director of Borat, and he figured that project would not be green lit today and it's only been 19 years.

 

[MattKing]

FWIW, I thought the article was worth reading.
In particular, the criticism of the current day curatorial choices.
It is, after all, primarily a review of a current show, not primarily a review of Arbus' work in the context of its own time.

 

[chuckroast]

FWIW, I thought the article was worth reading.
In particular, the criticism of the current day curatorial choices.
It is, after all, primarily a review of a current show, not primarily a review of Arbus' work in the context of its own time.

Be that as it may, it is painful to listen to the oh-so-precious disquisitions by the arts types as they filter their "analysis" through postmodern or deconstructionist drooling. Art has to be understood in it's time and in it's context, not made a slave to whatever the intellectual, social or political fashion of the moment might be.

IMHO that includes how a show is staged. If the show is not faithful to the artist, it deserves a smack. But if it's not faithful to today's precious oh-so-important pretenses, it simply doesn't matter.

This is why I so like the writing and criticism of the New Criterion and Roger Kimball - whom I consider the last great American critic around. They see the arts for their own selves without stuffing a bunch of after-the-fact demands on it because they have some wild hair about what the art should have been.

I've mentioned this book before, but it bears repetition. There is no better explanation of how bat-poop crazy modern art criticism has become than Kimball's "Rape Of The Masters". As a bonus, I found it was a great introduction to some of the greatest paintings in the Western canon.

Other than that, I have no opinion ...

 

[MattKing]

IMHO that includes how a show is staged. If the show is not faithful to the artist, it deserves a smack. But if it's not faithful to today's precious oh-so-important pretenses, it simply doesn't matter.

For those that haven't read the article, it includes such non-pretentious observations as:

"Despite their volume and scope, reflecting several periods of the artist’s development, the prints are displayed in no particular order, neither chronological nor thematic. Visitors wander through a dimly lit maze of randomly hung photographs, carelessly bundling together distinctly different subject matter — a mélange of Upper Manhattan bourgeois couples, carnival workers, nudist hippies, and “woman impersonators” — with zero context apart from a terse timeline of the artist’s life on a wall outside the exhibition.

The result feels like a real-life doomscroll, where untitled photos of unnamed people with disabilities captured with deer-in-the-headlights expressions on their faces appear right next to handsome, well-composed actors and writers such as Jayne Mansfield, Mae West, Norman Mailer, and Germaine Greer. Absent are wall labels with useful information about these pictures: who many of these subjects were, how she met them, and what they thought of her photographs of them."

 

[chuckroast]

For those that haven't read the article, it includes such non-pretentious observations as:


The result feels like a real-life doomscroll, where untitled photos of unnamed people with disabilities captured with deer-in-the-headlights expressions on their faces appear right next to handsome, well-composed actors and writers such as Jayne Mansfield, Mae West, Norman Mailer, and Germaine Greer. Absent are wall labels with useful information about these pictures: who many of these subjects were, how she met them, and what they thought of her photographs of them."

We'll just have to see it differently, I guess.

I find this kind of "analysis" conveniently after-the-fact and demanding too much from an artist that likely never provided much of this information in the first place (I could be wrong, I am not deeply acquainted with Arbus).


It feels to me like the critic here is busy trying to make this fit into their understanding of what should have been. rather than just letting the work speak on its own merits. In my readings, this is a particular disease of the arts elites, let by the bunch in New York. They cannot actually do the work themselves, but they are certain about how is should have been done, how it should be displayed, how it should be understood, and so forth.

Art is first, foremost, and always for the artist themselves. The rest of us get to peek over their shoulders. What we don't get to do is tell everyone what they should have done, what it meant, and how we must fit it into today's world.

But I'm a purist about this. Bach is Bach, Rembrandt is Rembrandt, and yes, Arbus is Arbus. I want to understand them for who they were and what they did, not what some blogger, critic, barista with an MFA, or other arts sideshow thinks ...

 

[F4U]

If somebody kills themself they meant for everything they ever did to be erased. It's a mental illness or defect that would lead somebody to do such a thing. I know nothing about Dianne Arbus' pictures, and don't want to. Why would I want to peer through a window into things that a diseased mind found interesting?

 

[koraks]

Sounds like someone got a slap on the wrist for taking photos of the show and wrote a sour review in response. And they apparently didn't like Arbus to begin with.

Bloggers gonna blog.

So that, basically.

If somebody kills themself they meant for everything they ever did to be erased.

I find this a distasteful comment, really, since it projects your ideas of the feelings underlying a dramatic decision onto people who are no longer in a position to comment it. It's a charged subject to begin with, of course. What's more, your view, if people would make the unfortunate decision to act upon it, would result effectively in erasure of people from history. Maybe it's best to keep some things to yourself.

 

[MARTIE]

I much prefer the piece in the Guardian, in which the journalist gives voice to the curator.

‘A reflection of who she was’: major Diane Arbus exhibition hits New York

An expansive survey of the photographer’s work lands at the Park Avenue Armory, offering an unusually assembled look at her defining images

www.theguardian.com

 

[Alex Benjamin]

"Despite their volume and scope, reflecting several periods of the artist’s development, the prints are displayed in no particular order, neither chronological nor thematic. Visitors wander through a dimly lit maze of randomly hung photographs, carelessly bundling together distinctly different subject matter — a mélange of Upper Manhattan bourgeois couples, carnival workers, nudist hippies, and “woman impersonators” — with zero context apart from a terse timeline of the artist’s life on a wall outside the exhibition.

The result feels like a real-life doomscroll, where untitled photos of unnamed people with disabilities captured with deer-in-the-headlights expressions on their faces appear right next to handsome, well-composed actors and writers such as Jayne Mansfield, Mae West, Norman Mailer, and Germaine Greer. Absent are wall labels with useful information about these pictures: who many of these subjects were, how she met them, and what they thought of her photographs of them."

The stupidity of this is dumbfounding. Written by somebody who has absolutely no photographic culture whatsoever, and very little knowledge and comprehension of who Diane Arbus was, what she did and why she did it. That's just unforgivable laziness. If this incompetent amateur had bothered to open books about Arbus such as Documents or Revelations, he would have found a lot of the info he felt he was missing.

But wait, there's stupider:

The era of Diane Arbus’s cold, classist gaze is dead. It belongs to an America that no longer exists and to an artistic school of thought that has run its course.

What the hell does this mean? We should dismiss all artists from the past who looked at the world differently than we do know? F*cking Après moi le déluge indeed! "Hey, all you pre-15th-century painters, the era of looking at the world without perspective is dead. Sorry, you belong to an artistic school of thought that has run its course."

I can't wait for the artistic school of My Generation Invented Everything to run its course!

Oh, and someone, please tell me which "artistic school of thought" Diane Arbus belonged to? Cold-classicist-gazeism? If so, missed the day when it was seen in art history class.

Absent are wall labels with useful information about these pictures: who many of these subjects were, how she met them, and what they thought of her photographs of them.

Now this one is rich. I can play that game too: "Absent from the Mona Lisa are labels with useful information about this painting: who da Vinci's subject was, how he met her, and what joke he cracked to make her smile like that."

This type of amateurism in criticism is the reason I stopped reading many arts blog, including Hyperallergic. Thankfully there are some intellingent and insightful critics out there.

 

[Milpool]

You people sure are angry about this.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

You people sure are angry about this.

Stupidity always makes me angry.

 

[chuckroast]

The stupidity of this is dumbfounding. Written by somebody who has absolutely no photographic culture whatsoever, and very little knowledge and comprehension of who Diane Arbus was, what she did and why she did it. That's just unforgivable laziness. If this incompetent amateur had bothered to open books about Arbus such as Documents or Revelations, he would have found a lot of the info he felt he was missing.

But wait, there's stupider:



What the hell does this mean? We should dismiss all artists from the past who looked at the world differently than we do know? F*cking Après moi le déluge indeed! "Hey, all you pre-15th-century painters, the era of looking at the world without perspective is dead. Sorry, you belong to an artistic school of thought that has run its course."

I can't wait for the artistic school of My Generation Invented Everything to run its course!

Oh, and someone, please tell me which "artistic school of thought" Diane Arbus belonged to? Cold-classicist-gazeism? If so, missed the day when it was seen in art history class.



Now this one is rich. I can play that game too: "Absent from the Mona Lisa are labels with usefult information about this painting: who da Vinci's subject was, how he met her, and what joke he cracked to make her smile like that."

This type of amateurism in criticism is the reason I stopped reading many arts blog, including Hyperallergic. Thankfully there are some intellingent and insightful critics out there.

Well said.

 

[warden]

I’ll be walking this show and I can’t wait.

 

[chuckroast]

Apropos of nothing, I just learned something really odd about all this...

In the TV show "MASH", the character of the psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Freedman is played by Diane Arbus' ex-husband, Allan Arbus. He was a photographer in his own right and the two of them shared a business and a joint darkroom - which they continued to share post-divorce until he moved to CA to become an actor.

 

[retina_restoration]

If somebody kills themself they meant for everything they ever did to be erased. It's a mental illness or defect that would lead somebody to do such a thing. I know nothing about Dianne Arbus' pictures, and don't want to. Why would I want to peer through a window into things that a diseased mind found interesting?

All this does is reveal your judgements about mental illness. And your insensitivity.
Following your "logic", why would anyone want to read 'The Old Man and The Sea', since Hemmingway died by suicide??

 

[retina_restoration]

The stupidity of this is dumbfounding. Written by somebody who has absolutely no photographic culture whatsoever, and very little knowledge and comprehension of who Diane Arbus was, what she did and why she did it. That's just unforgivable laziness. If this incompetent amateur had bothered to open books about Arbus such as Documents or Revelations, he would have found a lot of the info he felt he was missing.

But wait, there's stupider:



What the hell does this mean? We should dismiss all artists from the past who looked at the world differently than we do know?

It's typical "cancel culture" nonsense. This is just another one of a million bloggers trying hard to sell their product. It shouldn't be taken as some kind of "legitimate review'.

This type of amateurism in criticism is the reason I stopped reading many arts blog, including Hyperallergic. Thankfully there are some intellingent and insightful critics out there.

Hyperallergic shouldn't be taken seriously, IMO. That "review" is amateur drivel.

 

[chuckroast]

It's typical "cancel culture" nonsense. This is just another one of a million bloggers trying hard to sell their product. It shouldn't be taken as some kind of "legitimate review'.

Hyperallergic shouldn't be taken seriously, IMO. That "review" is amateur drivel.

In setting like this, you can fairly reliably bet that if the "ist" suffix is used, the writer/speaker is pedding some socio-political agenda or another, among them including "sexist", "racist", "classist", "nativist", ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

In my view, this is caused by mental laziness. It's always easy to - by turns - either dismiss or entirely explain something in broad strokes, lacking any real nuance or understanding. Most usually, I find this done by people who are desperately want attention, approval, or a sense of their own importance. This is most easily done by shoving today's ideas onto past events. It's a particular disease of the postmodern/poststructuralist schools.

In truth, Arbus was a child of considerable wealth that protected her from the ravages of the Depression. She was schooled, mentored, and promoted by some of the most elite arts establishment of her day among which included Bernice Abbott, John Szarkowski, and Richard Avedon.

Possibly a valid criticism of her work grounded in her time and her work might be that she voyeuristicallly examined the lives of people on the margin from a pretty lofty perch. But even that isn't really fair because - at most - her commentary was about her world in NYC - not the world at large. She was definitely born of privilege but whether she was just slumming, virtue signalling herself, or honestly exploring her world is a worthwhile investigation, perhaps. What isn't worthwhile, is trying to make her fit into what we want her to be through our perpsective today.

Personally, I never went deep with her work, partially out of a lack of time, and moreso out of a lack of interest in the fringes she was so obsessed with. It is telling that a wealthy, advantaged, and indisputably talented artist spent most of their time with the aforementioned fringes of society and came to the conclusion that the answer was to end her own life. People here and elsewhere like to explain this entirely as "mental illness" but I think there is more to it than that. When you live in a sewer, you smell like ... well, you know what. Constant immersion in human sadness and tragedy inevitably will make you sad, mental illness notwithstanding.

 

[Saganich]

If somebody kills themself they meant for everything they ever did to be erased. It's a mental illness or defect that would lead somebody to do such a thing. I know nothing about Dianne Arbus' pictures, and don't want to. Why would I want to peer through a window into things that a diseased mind found interesting?

I would only say to study up on this, and start with Emile Durkheim's foundational work.

 

[warden]

I just read the Hyperallergic review and didn't find much to like. The author seems to entirely miss the point of the layout and design of the show. Vogue sent a correspondent (Joanna Solotaroff) that was more alert:

To convey the objectivity so central to Arbus’s art, the works are not arranged chronologically or by subject. There are also no wall plaques or titles, even for the most famous images. In fact, there are hardly any walls at all, with the portraits instead affixed to tall, grid-like beams in a scattershot arrangement throughout the space, with no clear flow for foot traffic. Inspired by the New York City subway map, curator Matthieu Humery wanted the exhibition’s layout to echo Arbus’s experience identifying subjects in New York: “You have to look around and find your own way.”​

They also called out the critics on the other side of the issues:

Selkirk’s prints were initially featured in Arbus’s 1972 retrospective at MoMA, which received scathing reviews from certain critics, who claimed that Arbus’s work was voyeuristic, grotesque, and exploitative. But her champions assert that it was just the opposite. “Constellation” includes a 90-minute film featuring Selkirk called What Diane Arbus Wasn’t Doing, and How She Wasn’t Doing It, which confronts her most common critiques. In our interview, Selkirk tells me that Arbus “was completely non-judgmental of people. It didn’t mean she didn't think some people were awful, but they were entitled to be…the photograph was just a record of something that was.”​

​

A Return to Diane Arbus’s New York

Inspired by the New York City subway map, curator Matthieu Humery wanted the layout of “Constellation” to echo Arbus’s experience identifying subjects in New York: “You have to look around and find your own way.”

www.vogue.com

​

 

[warden]

If somebody kills themself they meant for everything they ever did to be erased. It's a mental illness or defect that would lead somebody to do such a thing. I know nothing about Dianne Arbus' pictures, and don't want to. Why would I want to peer through a window into things that a diseased mind found interesting?

Your comment is colder than any photo Arbus ever took. The world is full of artists that you have no access to with that kind of guiding principle.

 

[Arthurwg]

Selkirk’s prints were initially featured in Arbus’s 1972 retrospective at MoMA, which received scathing reviews from certain critics, who claimed that Arbus’s work was voyeuristic, grotesque, and exploitative.

I believe the initial reaction to Robert Frank's" The Americans". was something like that as well. Among those critics was Ansel Adams.