Explore – Diane Arbus curated by Carrie Mae Weems

Jun 9–Aug 19, 2021

Exploring highlights from the exhibition.

Black and white photograph of theater interior with audience watching screen
View of audience from balcony, Riviera Theater, 97th and Broadway, N.Y.C., 1958
gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 inches (sheet) [27.9 x 35.6 cm]
Gallery, Online
Jun 9–Aug 19, 2021
Press release

Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of 45 photographs by Diane Arbus, curated by acclaimed contemporary artist Carrie Mae Weems. A long-time admirer of Arbus’s work, Weems has selected images spanning Arbus’s fifteen-year career, from 1956 until her death in 1971.

Black and white photograph of a teenage couple in a park
Girl and boy, Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965, 1965
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

“There are and have been and will be an infinite number of things on earth: individuals all different, all wanting different things, all knowing different things, all loving different things, all looking different. Everything that has been on earth has been different from any other thing. That is what I love: the differentness, the uniqueness of all things and the importance of life….I see something that seems wonderful; I see the divineness in ordinary things.”

—Diane Arbus in a high-school essay on Plato, 1939

Black and white photograph of couple dancing
A couple at a dance, N.Y.C., 1960
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black and white photograph of family on beach
Puerto Rican family on the beach, Coney Island, N.Y. 1963, 1963
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black and white photograph of protesters walking down road with brush in foreground
Peace marchers, N.J. 1962, 1962
gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches (sheet) [40.6 x 50.8 cm]

“I want to photograph the considerable ceremonies of our present because we tend while living here and now to perceive only what is random and barren and formless about it. While we regret that the present is not like the past and despair of its ever becoming the future, its innumerable inscrutable habits lie in wait for their meaning. I want to gather them, like somebody’s grandmother putting up preserves, because they will have been so beautiful…”

—Diane Arbus in her Guggenheim Fellowship application, 1963

Black-and-white photograph of a woman sitting alone at a counter
Woman at a counter smoking, N.Y.C. 1962, printed later
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]
Black and white photograph of a body builder posting behind trophies
Kenneth Hall, the new Mr. New York City, at a physique contest, N.Y.C. 1959, 1959
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Color image of a typed note added to verso of print written by the artist
Label typed by Diane Arbus on the back of “Kenneth Hall, the new Mr. New York City, at a physique contest, N.Y.C., 1959”
Triptych of black and white photographs depicting three female impersonators in various states of primping
Female Impersonators, 1960
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (each sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black-and-white photograph of a tanned man sitting with his head resting on his hand
Charles Atlas seated in his Palm Beach home, Fla. 1969, printed later
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]
Color image of editorial highlighting a body builder shot by Diane Arbus

‘But ladies, I am 76 years old.’

The World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man’ now lives among the aged in Florida. But age, to Charles Atlas, does not mean being reduced to a seven-stone weakling again.’

—Headline of article by Philip Norman in Sunday Times Magazine (London), accompanied by photographs by Diane Arbus, October 19, 1969.

Black and white photograph of a young man seated in a city park
Black boy, Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965, 1965
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]
Black and white image of exhibition showcasing black and white photographs on white gallery walls
Three images in Carrie Mae Weems’s selection can be seen in this installation view of the landmark 1967 exhibition “New Documents” curated by John Szarkowski at MoMA: “A young man and his pregnant wife in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965;” “Black boy, Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. 1965;” and “Nudist lady with swan sunglasses, Pa. 1965.”
Black and white photograph of a woman with pursed lips
Woman making a kissy face, Sammy’s Bowery Follies, N.Y.C. 1958, 1958
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

“For me the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture. And more complicated.”

Diane Arbus
Black and white photograph of a young woman with black eyeliner and tied up dark hair
Woman with eyeliner, N.Y.C. 1967, 1967
gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches (sheet) [50.8 x 40.6 cm]
Black and white photograph of teenager with baseball in middle of street
Teenager with a baseball bat, N.Y.C., 1962
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black and white photograph of a formally dressed couple embracing
Late party in a hotel room, N.Y.C. 1963, 1963
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]

“I don’t press the shutter. The image does, and it’s like being gently clobbered.”

Diane Arbus
Black and white photograph of waitress at counter of diner
Uneeda counter woman at a cash register, N.Y.C., 1962
gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches (sheet) [35.6 x 27.9 cm]
Black and white photograph of an empty theater
An Empty Movie Theater, N.Y.C., 1971
gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches (sheet) [40.6 x 50.8 cm]
Artists: Diane Arbus, Carrie Mae Weems

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