Customer Reviews

Diane Arbus: Family Albums

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Two associate professors of art history want to climb the academic career ladder. My oh my, what are they to do? Wait! Zounds! Eureka! Someone has found some contact sheets from a private shooting assignment done by - gasp! - Diane Arbus.

We have the photos! We have a hall! Let's mount an exhibition! By Jove, let's write an essay! Two essays because there are two academics struggling for advancement.

And so it is done. An exhibition. A book to commemorate the exhibition.

And two of the most bizarre, sophmoric, empty-headed art history essays you can imagine. Sophistry of the first order as these two try to make academic hay on a dead photographer.

The photos, most by Arbus, occupy only about half the book. And they are all to be seen elsewhere in more congenial settings. ("Diane Arbus: Revelations," for example.)

The essays are just plain ridiculous. Stereotypical academic writing. Diane Arbus was a good photographer, skilled at capturing otherwise ordinary people in unexpected or odd poses. Had she missed the critical instant in most cases, the photo she is famous for would have been missed. The same can be said of Henri Carier-Bresson in a way, but Arbus was more prone to setting her subjects up, while Cartier-Bresson photographed the moment. Arbus also made heavy use of the unflattering aspects of newly introduced portable electronic flashes to add a harsh edge to her photos which also made her subjects appear unnatural.

But these two academics, Anthony W. Lee and John Pultz, roll out all the holies of left-wing academia. The "youth rebellion" of the 60s. Gay liberation. Emancipated women. You name the left-wing cause and it gets at least one mention in their respective essays. Arbus becomes not merely a photographer, but a social prophet. (I suspect the authors may have seen one too many performances of "Mother Courage".)

Not content with merely turning Arbus into a latter day Nostrodamus, they then proceed to channel themselves into the dead Arbus (a suicide at age 48) and tell us what her last great work would have been, had she not killed herself. They also use these psychic projections for more ruminations on the death of the family.

It felt like my jaw hung open while I read both these essays in full. Like passing an auto accident, I was transfixed, wanting to see what the next horror would be. Believe me, there is no shortage of the horror of vapid intellectual posturing in these two essays. Trees should have been saved rather than wasted in the printing of this academic emptiness.

The only redeeming feature is the production of some of the contact sheets from this 1969 Arbus family portrait shoot. But even that is minimized by the moody, dark printing of the pages. Oh, the drama, the drama! (I must point out that one of the authors is shown on his web page dressed in black; no doubt to make it impossible to non-conformist, artistic spirit.)

This is really an awful thing to have done to Diane Arbus. Her work is strong enough to stand on its own, without this empty-headed academic blather. Anyone who truly appreciates and respects the work of Diane Arbus is better advised to look elsewhere.

Jerry

I read Jerry Saperstein's commentary of this book and I do agree with him, so please read Jerry's comments, along with mine, to get a better feel for this book called: "DIANE ARBUS:FAMILY ALBUMS".

By reading Jerry's commentary I can tell that Jerry, the reviewer, is probably a professional photographer ,which I am not. So Jerry was able to extrapulate more than I did from reading this book. That is why I stated that Jerry's (the commentator's) review can shed light on this book probably better than I can (though I will try my best for you all).

As a non-photography expert, I viewed the photos as a typical reader might. If you are a novice photo-taker, like me, then these points might help, prior to buying this book:

1) I am slightly familiar with Diane Arbus and I even saw the movie "FUR" recently (as I said: I'm a non-photography expert) . But as most of us movie buffs know, the movie "FUR" is far from telling the real Diane Arbus story! Therefore, after seeing the movie, I wanted to own a book with some of Diane's actual photo-reprints,in order to get a better feel for the deceased photographer described in the movie "FUR".
As most of you that saw the movie "FUR" noticed, the movie did not show hardly any photos taken by Nicole Kidman, who played Diane Arbus. That frustrated me, and therefore I set out to find a book with some of her actual photographs. (MOVIE SPOILER: In the movie "FUR", the "furry man" was a fictional character & not a real-life person that Diane ever fell in love with in her real life. Also, in the movie "FUR" , Nicole Kidman {ie: Diane Arbus} presents an ALBUM at the next to last scene. Well, that "album" was also not to be confused with this book's "Family Albums").

2) I found this book "on sale" and I'm glad I did, because I would not have payed full price for it. Also note that since this book is sold inside a sealed plastic covering, the purchaser would not be able to take a peak at the photos prior to purchase. Therefore, reading a review, prior to purchase, could come-in quite handy to most potential purchasers.

3) The title of this book is called "Diane Arbus:FAMILY ALBUMS", which is a very deceptive title, since the girl on the front of the cover is NOT Diane Arbus, as most might assume, but rather, a wealthy teen-age daughter of a New York socialite that most of us have never heard of. Also, this book is NOT a series of "family albums" of Diane's family or relatives.

By the way, the same N.Y. socialite mentioned by me above, was the person or persons (ie: heirs) that provided the "family prints" and proofs used in the last chapters of this book. Therefore, the proofs are NOT of Diane's family.

4) I liked the first few photos in this book because they showed Diane's style. Example, the large photo of Jayne Mansfield and her daughter. Also, the photos taken by other famous photographers (in chapters 1-2) are very interesting and they show the contrast between Diane's style and theirs (along with the artistic influences that Diane might have had in her profession).

5) Since I love "old" photos from the 1800s and early 1900's, I enjoyed the photos in the first few chapters taken by OTHER famous photographers during the Great Depression. I especially loved the large shots of the migrant farmers and their families (a la "Grapes of Wrath").

6) My least favorite photos are those taken by Arbus of the New York socialite's family. In other words, the photos that the title attempted to draw the purchaser with!

Somehow those last few photos (and proofs) simply did not fit-in with the other archival photos from the Great Depression, and/or even the photos of other famous people (such as the founder of the Atheist Society,or Mae West)!

7) All photos are in black and white. The photos from the first few chapters are VERY LARGE & clear. I liked this fact because the reader could see all the details nicely. The last chapters' photos are, as I stated before, of this socialite's family which most of us could care less. They look like proofs that could have been taken by any hired photographer.But instead, they were taken by Arbus, not long before she died.

P.S.: I just bought another book about Diane Arbus called "Diane Arbus:A Biography" by Diane Bosworth. But since I have only just started it, I cannot comment on it in this review.