Aperature’s Michael E. Hoffman accepted the challenge.

1. "Photography for me is not looking, it's feeling. If you can't feel what you're looking at, then you're never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” ----Diane Arbus • MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, prepared to stage a retrospective on Arbus in 1972, producing an accompanying • Diane Arbus Revelations catalogue. • The proposal was turned down by all major publishing houses, due to the contraversial nature of her work and death. Aperature’s Michael E. Hoffman accepted the challenge. The show and catalogue were and are a huge success.

2. Boy with Toy Hand Grenade, Central Park, 1962 Early work: used 35mm camera. Documentary style, similar to others of the period. Personal encounter. Diane Arbus is best known for her artwork consisting mostly of New Yorkers. Portraits of children,

3. Albino sword swallower at a carnival, MD. 1970 Diane Arbus is best known for her artwork consisting mostly of New Yorkers. Portraits of children, carnivalperformers,

4. A Young Brooklyn Family Going on a Sunday Outing, N.Y.C., 1966 Representing what is considered familiar with the unfamiliar… Diane Arbus is best known for her artwork consisting mostly of New Yorkers. Portraits of children, carnival performers, middle-class families,

5. Diane Arbus is best known for her artwork consisting mostly of New Yorkers. Portraits of children, carnival performers, middle-class families, couples, nudists, and finding the exotic in the plain.

6. …exploring the relationships between appearance and identity… A young man in curlers at home on west 20th st. NYC, 1966 Diane Arbus is best known for her artwork consisting mostly of New Yorkers. Portraits of children, carnival performers, couples, middle-class families, nudists, transvestites,

7. By the 1960s she was using a Rolleiflex medium format twin –lens reflex. Providing for a square aspect ratio, higher image resolution (her initial prints in photography showed a fascination of the grain) and she utilized a waist – level viewfinder to connect with her subjects in an unconventional way. She experimented with the use of flashes in daylight, highlighting and separating subjects from background. She was a passionate photographer who would rampage the city despite being weighed down by cameras. 42nd Street Movie Theatre Audience, N.Y.C., 1958 …illusion and belief, theater and reality… Woman With a Veil on Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C. 1968 Diane Arbus is best known for her artwork consisting mostly of New Yorkers. Portraits of children, carnival performers, couples, middle-class families, nudists, transvestites, people on the street, zealots, eccentrics, and celebrities.

8. Born Diane Nemerev To Gertrude and David Nemerov. Father inherited Russek’s, originally a fur store. Wealty Jewish family. Nannies. Education. Talented artist. Longed for understanding. Two ladies at the Automat, 1966

9. As a child she would stand on the ledge of their eleven story apartment above Central Park, gazing out at the trees and skyscrapers in the distance. “I wanted to see if I could do it. I didn’t inherit my kingdom for a long time.” Diane Arbus,five, and her beloved brother Howard, eight. “I want to be a great, sad artist”

10. “…people think our depravity is only temporary” Diane Arbus committed suicide July, 1971. Photo taken by Eva Rubenstein, 1971. Diane had given Eva the assignment to “take a picture of something or somebody you’ve never taken before or are afraid or in awe of…”

11. For years, individuals with mental retardation were set at the outskirts of society by being placed in state hospitals, poorly maintained residences or foster care homes, experimented on and treated as less than human for differences that were reflected in their social and cultural habits. Untitled, 1969-1971 “You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw.”

12. Their diverse perception of reality greatly varied from individuals who claim independence in some of the simplest freedoms as providing for oneself. Untitled, 1969-1971

13. Untitled, 1969-1971 While these differences set a disabled individual apart from society, there are notable qualities of innocence and unabashed-ness, a lack of self-consciousness, an unfettered acceptance of who they are. Certainly, it is all these characteristics that attracted Diane Arbus.

14. Untitled, 1969-1971 "Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.” (Diane Arbus: A Biography, by Patricia Bosworth)

15. Outsider: one who is not part of a particular group.