“Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. ... Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."
March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971
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Genre
American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people (dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, circus performers) or else of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal.“
Louis A. Sass “’Hyped on Clarity’: Diane Arbus and the Postmodern Condition”
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Recurring themes & Different Bodies of Work
Freaks
•A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid... that she would be known simply as 'the photographer of freaks'“
•A friend said that Arbus said that she was "afraid... that she would be known simply as 'the photographer of freaks'“
•Saw the beauty in imperfection
•In a world obsessed with the idea of ‘beauty’ being perfection. People photographed represent a class not trying to imitate anything, awkward and creepy, and completely themselves.
•Eerie feel
•Unsympathetic tone towards subject of photograph(s)
In this body of work Arbus focused on people on the ‘outside’ of society, people that don’t conform to general population in some extrovert way. Her work doing this has been seen as badly by some critics, because they feel her photo’s always show an unsympathetic angle to the subject. This is her most famous work.
Fashion Magazine Work
American photographer and writer noted for black-and-white square photographs of "deviant and marginal people (dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, circus performers) or else of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal.“
Louis A. Sass “’Hyped on Clarity’: Diane Arbus and the Postmodern Condition”
