"Diane Arbus Revelations"
2005-10-13 until 2006-01-15
Victoria and Albert Museum
London, , UK

The V&A will open a major exhibition this autumn on Diane Arbus, the legendary New York photographer whose work captured 1950s and 1960s America and transformed the art of photography. Diane Arbus Revelations is the largest retrospective of her work ever assembled and is the first international Arbus exhibition for over 30 years. "Nothing is ever the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before that I recognize." Diane Arbus.

The exhibition consists of nearly 200 of the artist's most significant photographs - making it the most complete presentation of her work ever assembled. Prints are drawn from major public and private collections throughout the world and include many images that have never been exhibited publicly. Among the works on display are such iconic images as 'A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, N.Y. 1970', 'Identical twins, Roselle, N.J. 1967', 'Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C. 1962' and 'A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. 1966'.

Diane Arbus (1923-1971) was born in New York City and found most of her subjects there. She was a photographer primarily of people she discovered in the metropolis and its environs. Her "contemporary anthropology" portraits of couples, children, carnival performers, nudists, middle-class families, transvestites, people on the street, zealots, eccentrics, and celebrities - stands as an allegory of postwar America and an exploration of the relationship between appearance and identity, illusion and belief, theatre and reality.

IMAGE
Diane Arbus
Albino sword swallower at a carnival, Md. 1970
Copyright © 1972
The Estate of Diane Arbus, LLC

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