Diane Arbus - Reactions of Critics and Others

Reactions of Critics and Others

Susan Sontag wrote an essay in 1973 entitled "Freak Show" that was critical of Arbus's work; it was reprinted in her 1977 book On Photography as "America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly." Among other criticisms, Sontag opposed the lack of beauty in Arbus's work and its failure to make the viewer feel compassionate about Arbus's subjects. Sontag's essay itself has been criticized as "an exercise in aesthetic insensibility" and "exemplary for its shallowness." A 2008 essay characterized Sontag and Arbus as "Siamese twins of photographic art," because they both struggled with photography as art versus documentation (e.g., the relationship of photographer and subject). A 2009 article pointed out that Arbus had photographed Sontag and her son in 1965, thereby causing one to "wonder if Sontag felt this was an unfair portrait."

Other critics' opinions of Arbus's photographs vary widely, for example:

• Max Kozloff wrote in 1967 that Arbus's photographs have "an extraordinary ethical conviction" because they were taken with the subjects' consent and thereby challenge the viewer.
• Robert Hughes praised Arbus in 1972 as having "altered our experience of the face."
• Hilton Kramer opined in 1972 that Arbus "altered the terms of the art she practiced" and "completely wins us over."
• Judith Goldman in 1974 was of the opinion that Arbus's photographs betrayed their subjects by portraying them as full of despair.
• David Pagel in 1992 found Arbus's pictures of women with intellectual disability "remarkable" and "intriguing."
• Jed Perl felt that Arbus was "master of the high-falutin' creep-out" and that her photographs were "an emotional tease" in a 2003 critique.
• Barbara O'Brien in a 2004 review of the exhibition "Diane Arbus: Family Albums" found her and August Sander's work "filled with life and energy."
• Peter Schjeldahl, while claiming in 2005 that "no other photographer has been more controversial," also felt that her work was "revolutionary."
• Brian Sewell dismissed Arbus's work in 2005 as unremarkable and as having gained prominence partly because of her suicide, but as "worth a second glance."
• Ken Johnson, reviewing a show of Arbus's lesser-known works in 2005, likened Arbus's story-telling ability to that of writer Flannery O'Connor.
• Leo Rubinfien in 2005 compared Arbus to Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett in exploring absurdity and fatalism.
• Stephanie Zacharek wrote in 2006 "When I look at her pictures, I see not a gift for capturing whatever life is there, but a desire to confirm her own suspicions about humanity's dullness, stupidity and ugliness."
• Wayne Koestenbaum asked in 2007 whether Arbus's photographs humiliate the subjects or the viewers.

Arbus's subjects and their relatives also have differing views:

• The father of the twins pictured in "Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J. 1967" felt that the photograph "was the worst likeness" of the girls he had ever seen.
• Anderson Cooper considers Arbus's photograph of him as an infant "great."
• Writer Germaine Greer, who was the subject of an Arbus photograph in 1971, criticized it as an "undeniably bad picture" and Arbus's work in general as unoriginal and focusing on "mere human imperfection and self-delusion."
• A taxi driver in New York who was the subject of the photograph "Boy With a Straw Hat" reportedly said to Arbus about the photograph, without knowing her identity, "Picture of me! What a thrill! Wish I knew who the photographer was. Like to thank him."

One study published in 1985 examined the opinions of eighteen women viewing eight Arbus photographs. The subjects tended to agree with statements based on Arbus's own words such as "These photographs show the gap between intention and effect," and tended to disagree with statements based on critics' views of Arbus such as "These photographs show the world only as a meaningless place of ugliness, horror and misery."