tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post6006795118231696399..comments2023-11-22T09:11:01.567+00:00Comments on George Szirtes: Arbus: ParagonsGeorge Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-47986323152372877472009-10-28T19:55:57.340+00:002009-10-28T19:55:57.340+00:00That circle of water is a fine image George. Yes, ...That circle of water is a fine image George. Yes, they are of course as human as we are, and photographers like Arbus can bring this home; part of her mission seems to have been to reveal the outcast/marginal/freakish as, essentially, normal. Other portraits of hers are the same mirror reversed, revealing the 'normal' as slightly off-key/disturbing/freakish. Her boy with a toy hand grenade is a perfect example: http://tribes.tribe.net/photoaesthetics/photos/410f57cf-cadc-4f4d-9ebb-28d0228bdd23<br /> One friend of mine adamantly refused to see this image as in any way disturbing, insisting that the boy was just doing what children do, playing it as 'real' as possible. I think my friend had a point; part of the tension that makes the image memorable is the way it shimmers between everyday and deranged (with obvious echoes of the Vietnam War). In a sense, I think Arbus's best images have what many good & great photographer portraitists are aiming for, a subject that wobbles between worlds, as in Avedon's Beekeeper:<br />http://www.flickr.com/photos/battyward/3827419508/sizes/l/<br /><br />Arbus managed to nail something though, an atmospheric pressure that is as artistically distinctive as a Picasso skull. She was unique.Mark Granierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09899629187771913398noreply@blogger.com