Photographer Spotlight: Diane Arbus

March 14, 1923 – July 26, 1971

Diane Arbus was a fascinating photographer, based out of New York City, whose work still generates a ridiculous amount of interest and relevance today. She is known for her eerie portraits featuring the 'others' of society. With her husband, she started out in fashion and advertising photography, which was quite successful, being featured in major fashion publications like Vogue. I think it could have been her involvement in the industry at the time that contributed to her photography finding itself at what can be seen as the complete opposite end of the spectrum. She did gain success as an independent photographer in her lifetime, having her work exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among other places. Arbus struggled with depression, and sadly committed suicide at the age of 48. 

Her work has been described as voyeuristic and disturbing, but I think she was kind of ahead of her time with her exposure of 'oddities'. To me they somehow parallel the reality TV phenomenon, and shows that give you a look into the 'abnormal'. Her fascination with the unusual is essentially what sparked many people's fascination with her.  Diane Arbus wrote about how her photographic experiences raised 'awe and shame in one gulp'. 

Her photos capture me in every possible way, check out her work...

Wonder

"Sometimes I'd like to ask God why there's poverty, famine, and injustice in the world when He could do something about it. But I'm afraid He might ask me the same question."

Helvetica

WATCH THIS FILM

http://www.helveticafilm.com/index.html 

Helvetica is a documentary film by Gary Hustwit.

Swiss typeface developed in 1957. What you are reading right now is written in Helvetica.

Helvetica makes the world go round.

Typography

Design

Push and pull

Just one typeface

Imposition

Communication

Psychology

Advertising

Arbitrary

Ubiquity

Perfect

Indefinite

Absolute

Where ever you are right now, I guarantee you can find some helvetica somewhere. 

street signs

billboards

government forms

keyboards

bathroom signs

You're looking at it right now

"Pay more attention to the background, so that the counters and the space between characters just hold the letters. I mean you can't imagine anything moving; it is so firm. It not a letter that bent to shape; it's a letter that lives in a powerful matrix of surrounding space."

"The sort of classical modernist line on how aware a reader should be of a typeface is that they shouldn't be aware of it at all."

"And it's hard to evaluate it. It's like being asked what you think about off-white paint. It's just... it's just there. And it's hard to get your head around, it's that big."

More then half of a century later, its still like air....

Watch this documentary!

Vegas

Cairo

Abstract Expressionist New York @ AGO

My first time ever seeing any of Pollock's work in person...

The Art Gallery of Ontario is having an 'Abstract Expressionist New York' exhibit on right now, featuring a bunch of interesting work from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was an awesome chance to see all these works in Toronto...the exhibit is on until September 4th..Also features work from Jackson Pollock's wife Lee Krasner, Barnett Newman, Rothko, Motherwell, William de Kooning, Louise Bourgeois and many more...

The copyright laws are different in New York or something, so pictures are allowed at this exhibition-if I had known this ahead of time I would have had my camera with me...so these are from the iphone...

All work by the legendary Jackson Pollock

The She-Wolf, 1943

Full Fathom Five, 1947

Full Fathom Five, 1947

(key detail)

Echo: Number 25, 1951

Number 1A, 1948

Number 1A, 1948 

handprint detail

White Light, 1954

Check the AGO website for the info on the Exhibition, cool stuff

http://www.ago.net/abstract-expressionist-new-york

Patrick Demarchelier

Demarchelier has done work for pretty much every major fashion publication...here is some of his work i really enjoy...

Even the best argument has no solid foundation, for we have all come to distrust the 
slippery nature of words

When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, is it even unreasonable to grieve when it comes to an end?

-yes thats twilight;  Stephenie Meyer isn't given enough credit from all the haters as an artist of literature.  

Wilde

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has the right to do so. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.


-The Picture of Dorian Gray
One of my favourite books

By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate


Emily Brontë

There are no beginnings or ends
Arbitrarily, one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back, and from which to look ahead 

Imagining things impossible to execute 

And I just happened to be paying attention the moment all the lights went out 

Ayesha Karatella

She was still thin, 
elegant,
refined,
but touched by sorrow so deep,
it gave her grace and dignity 


-Peony In Love, Lisa See

Revisiting places she had taken me,
whether because I thought I might see her,
or because I thought I might see something of us,
I am now not certain 


The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
...Good read, check it out

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Creative men desire to live with a woman


 Thoroughly enjoyed this movie...Woody Allen...Watch it

Moments are incalculable feelings

their significance is not transferable to anyone

it has to be explained

it is retrospective

the moment you know its a moment,

its no longer a moment

it is an intensity of feeling which communicates immediate presence 

You know you say that things are 'much of a muchness' — did you ever see a drawing of a muchness?

-Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

Photography, Ayesha Karatella 

Alan Moore

Where do you get your ideas from?

In the dismal and confused sludge of opinion and half truth that make up all artistic theory and criticism, it's the only question worth asking. We don't know the answer, and we're scared somebody will find out.

Alan Moore

External source

Its a question of reassembling the components in the correct sequence

I sleep walk you see, 

thats why i wear shoes to bed

-Luna

Sad inability to communicate directly from mind to mind

Things

Dreams that tell you they are not dreams, from which comes the questions that trouble and enthrall and finally free our spirits, if we are brave enough for the answers

-Neil Gaiman


The Sandman: Dream Country 

(amazing graphic novel, get it)