PHOTO:Diane Arbus In the Park

Diane Arbus was one of the most original and influential artists of the 20th Century. She studied photography with Berenice Abbott, Alexey Brodovitch, and Lisette Model. In 1963 and 1966 she was awarded John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships, and was one of three photographers whose work was the focus of “New Documents”, John Szarkowski’s landmark exhibition at the MoMA in 1967. A year after her death, her work was selected for inclusion in the Venice Biennale (the first work of an American photographer to be so honored).

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Lévy Gorvy Gallery Archive

The exhibition “Diane Arbus: In the Park” at Lévy Gorvy Gallery in New York is the first to focus solely on Arbus’ photographs made in Central Park and Washington Square, theaters of public interaction that provided fertile territory for the creation of many of her most striking and original images. Arbus began photographing in Central Park in 1956, at the very beginning of her work as a serious artist, and returned repeatedly to the city’s parks over her brief, fifteen-year career. For Arbus, the city’s parks were arenas of rich and unpredictable encounter. “… I remember one summer I worked a lot in Washington Square Park. It must have been about 1966. The park was divided. It has these walks, sort of like a sunburst, and there were these territories staked out. There were young hippie junkies down one row. There were lesbians down another, really tough amazingly hard-core lesbians. And in the middle were winos. They were like the first echelon and the girls who came from the Bronx to become hippies would have to sleep with the winos to get to sit on the other part with the junkie hippies. It was really remarkable. And I found it very scary… There were days I just couldn’t work there and then there were days I could…. I got to know a few of them. I hung around a lot… I was very keen to get close to them, so I had to ask to photograph them”. The exhibition interweaves rarely seen photographs, like “A very thin man in Central Park, N.Y.C.” (1961), and “Couple talking on a path, N.Y.C.” (1970), alongside well-known images such as “Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C.” (1962), and “Young man and his pregnant wife in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C.” (1965). The majority of these works were the result of a single chance meeting between Arbus and her subjects. Several, including “Girl in a beret in Central Park, N.Y.C.,” (1958), “Three girls at a Puerto Rican Festival, N.Y.C.” (1962), and “Susan Sontag and her son on bench, N.Y.C.” (1965) are being exhibited for the first time. Among the last pictures in the exhibition is “A young man and his girlfriend with hot dogs in the park, N.Y.C.” (1971), the year of her death. The exhibition thus surveys the evolution of Arbus’ style as well as the evolution of her singular approach to the people she photographed.

Info: Lévy Gorvy Gallery, 909 Madison Avenue, New York, Duration: 2/5-24/6/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.levygorvy.com