Vivian Maier. Through a Critical Lens

Transcription

1 Vivian Maier Through a Critical Lens

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3 fig 1 Chicago, IL, June 7, 1956 fig 2 (cover) New York City, September 10, 1955

4 This exhibition features 70 photographs (50 black-and-white and 20 color prints) of people encountered on the streets of New York City and Chicago by the late photographer Vivian Maier ( ). Maier s photographs, created between the late 1940s and the early 1980s, were kept completely private by the artist and caused a stir when they were first exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Center in Elusive, solitary, and clearly talented, Vivian Maier is the quintessential undiscovered artist of our time. 1 vivian maier

5 Vivian Maier Through a Critical Lens 2 vivian maier The still unfolding narrative of who Vivian Maier was as well as the story about how the works were discovered at a storage facility auction continue to dominate discussions about Maier s work. In fact, with the exception of a short article by art historian Abigail Solomon-Godeau commissioned by the Jeu de Paume, there has not yet been any systematic investigations of Maier s archive resulting in vetted scholarship. As a result, there are still many questions to be raised and discussions to be had about Maier s photographs.

6 3 vivian maier fig 3 108th St. East, New York, NY, September 28, 1959

7 4 vivian maier More than 200,000 negatives of Vivian Maier s work exist but so far only a fraction of the works have been made public. A decision was made to focus on the photographs Maier made on the street thereby labeling her a street photographer. What are the benefits and drawbacks of categorizing Maier s work right now?

8 5 vivian maier fig 4 Man with Pigeons n.d.

9 6 vivian maier The term street photography has been used in many different contexts. It can be referred to when discussing photo-journalism, photo-documentary, fine art photography, and amateur photography. Street photography was first used as an art historical moniker in the 1950s as a way of consecrating, as art, the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Dorothea Lange who until then had been understood as documentary photographers. Now, some art historians argue, the definition of street photography has become so murky and over-used that it is meaningless. Nevertheless, Vivian Maier has been promoted as a street photographer. Why do you think her work has been marketed as such?

10 7 vivian maier fig 5 Armenian Woman Fighting, Lower East Side, NY, September 1956

11 8 vivian maier With a handful of exceptions, very few women photographers have taken pictures on the street. Vivian Maier could be added to this short list that includes Diane Arbus, Helen Levitt, and Lisette Model, among others. Why do so few women photographers work on the street? And in light of her gender, what does Maier s work contribute to discussions about photographs of the street?

12 9 vivian maier fig 6 New York, NY n.d.

13 10 Compared to the number of negatives Maier produced, vivian maier very few vintage prints exist. The prints on view in this exhibition were chosen and produced in the last five years by John Maloof, one of the people who discovered her work. Therefore, we don t know if the images Maloof chose to print are those the artist herself would have selected. How does this affect the way that we consider Maier s work?

14 11 vivian maier fig 7 Untitled, 1963

15 12 vivian maier Maier was a very private person who, as far as anyone can determine at this point, never intended to publicly exhibit her work. From an ethical stand point, is it right to promote her work now, knowing that she did not pursue it herself? If so, why? Alison Ferris Senior Curator

16 13 vivian maier fig 8 New York, NY, 1954

17 checklist Vivian Maier: Through a Critical Lens Image titles appear under the images. All images: Vivian Maier (American, ) Gelatin silver print; printed later Image size: 12 x 12 inches / Paper size: 20 x 16 inches Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York Published in conjunction with two concurrent exhibitions at the Des Moines Art Center: Vivian Maier: Through a Critical Lens September 17, 2016 January 22, 2017 / Anna K. Meredith Gallery Vivian Maier: Through a Critical Lens was organized by the Maloof Collection, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York. The Art Center presentation was organized by Des Moines Art Center Senior Curator Alison Ferris. Whose Streets? August 19, 2016 January 15, 2017 / Blank One Gallery Whose Streets? was organized by Des Moines Art Center Senior Curator Alison Ferris. All Vivian Maier photos Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York All WHOSE STREETS? reproduction images by Rich Sanders, Des Moines, Iowa 14 vivian maier Author: Alison Ferris Design: Connie Wilson Des Moines Art Center 2016 / All rights reserved 4700 Grand Avenue / Des Moines, Iowa / Vivian Maier: Through a Critical Lens is supported by: Farm Bureau financial services marty Gross kpmg llc entirelyunexpected Additional programming support provided by:

18 whose streets?

19 fig 9 Vivian Maier Untitled n.d. fig 10 (cover) Danny Lyon Cockroach and his family, Chicago 1965

20 ` Whose Streets? is an exhibition featuring works from the Art Center s permanent collections organized to speak directly to and contextualize Vivian Maier s work. Modernity is an art historical term that describes the rejection of established artistic styles, the embrace of new technology and ideas, and the depiction of contemporary, everyday life. The city was the ultimate symbol of modernity starting with the Impressionists and their paintings of Paris. However, the representation of the city is even more intrinsic to photography, which emerged in 1839 at the dawn of Modernism. This exhibition explores the ways that painting and photography of the city and its streets captured the ways that Modernism thrilled, excited, troubled, and dismayed the people of its time. Also evident here are the ways that the politics of class, race, age, and gender play out on the city streets, resulting in questions still relevant today. Who ultimately can comfortably inhabit the streets? Who is empowered and disempowered? And how have these dynamics changed or remained the same in the last couple of centuries? 1 whose streets?

21 whose streets? 2 whose streets? Isabel Bishop and Reginald Marsh were members of New York s Fourteenth Street School, a group of artists whose studios were in Union Square. These artists rejected European abstraction and instead pursued a social realist style depicting everyday people in New York. Bishop frequently painted the modern women of the city as they walked to work, took their lunch breaks, and rode the subway. Marsh depicted vignettes of ordinary people interacting on the streets, such as Untitled where two men share a park bench and look at a newspaper. fig 11 Vivian Maier Untitled n.d. Maier shared the same interest in everyday encounters and vignettes and, in fact, she often depicted the same subject matter in her photographs that Bishop and Marsh depicted in their paintings.

22 3 whose streets? fig 12 Reginald Marsh Untitled 1924

23 4 whose streets? Whereas many photographers in the 19th and 20th centuries captured the hustle and bustle of daily life on the streets, Harry Callahan depicted the city as it was also popularly perceived: as a place of existential isolation. Here in Providence the layered rectangular geometries of the buildings that reiterate the picture plane render the city as impenetrable. fig 13 Vivian Maier New York, NY 1953 How do Vivian Maier s photographs of city scenes compare to those of Harry Callahan s work?

24 5 whose streets? fig 14 Harry Callahan Providence 1971

25 6 whose streets? Jacob Riis began the practice of photographing the poor, immigrants, and the homeless in the 1880s, a project that culminated in How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York. His practice, as well as others who depict people s pain and misfortune, have been accused of being complicit with the systems that caused the subjects hardships rather than actively engaging in ways to make change. The same questions might be raised about this photograph by Leon Levinstein. fig 15 Vivian Maier Untitled, Chicago, May 16, 1957 Most of Vivian Maier s photographs of children and the disenfranchised look directly at the camera whereas the well-dressed, presumably upper classes are depicted from afar. This leaves us to wonder if this was a coincidence or it was deliberate on the part of Maier. If it was a calculated decision, how does that impact the way we interpret her photographs, especially in regard to race and class?

26 7 whose streets? fig 16 Leon Levinstein Untitled (Three children seen through tenement window, New York City) 1960s

27 8 whose streets? Ken Heyman s Hip Shots series are literally photographs the artist made while holding his camera by his hip and clicking the shutter. This was one of the many ways that photographers made pictures of unsuspecting people on the street. This practice was called into question in the 1980s, purporting that using hidden cameras does not require the photographer to take responsibility for his subject matter. It allows him to say he was simply taking a picture of what was in front of him rather than acknowledge the power he has by controlling the camera. It also begs the question, who is allowed to control an individual s likeness? For the majority of her career, Vivian Maier used a twin lens Rolleiflex. The Rolleiflex is a challenging camera to use as one looks down into the lenses from above to focus; therefore it makes it hard to point and shoot or like Heyman, make hip shots, which photographers were able to do later with 35 millimeter cameras. fig 17 Vivian Maier Self-portrait n.d. Using a Rolleiflex meant that Maier did not have to look directly at her subject matter while she was taking her photographs. How does this fact impact the way that we understand Maier s work?

28 9 whose streets? fig 18 Ken Heyman Hip Shots: People holding hands in a circle, New York 1985

29 10 Garry Winogrand is a renowned American photographer whose streets? who worked predominantly on the streets of New York from the 1950s through the early 1980s. Winogrand s photographs from the series Women Are Beautiful, have often been noted as illustrating what art historian Abigail Solomon-Godeau describes as the masculine prerogatives of active looking, the gendered attributes of public space, the relative vulnerability of women within that space, and the aggressive aspects of photographing unwitting subjects. fig 19 Vivian Maier Untitled n.d. How does Vivian Maier s work complicate this assertion by Solomon-Godeau?

30 11 whose streets? fig 20 Garry Winogrand Untitled, from Women are Beautiful c.1965

31 12 Cindy Sherman s Untitled Film Stills, a series of 69 whose streets? photographs, examines stereotypical representations of women from the film era of the 1950s. In Untitled Film Still #4 a woman is depicted as hesitant and vulnerable in an empty, foreboding public space. Sherman s work draws attention to the role of the voyeur and issues regarding who has the power to look. fig 21 Vivian Maier Florida, January 9, 1957 Sherman s work intrinsically critiques the work of her predecessors such as Garry Winogrand. How does Sherman s art help us shed light on the photography of Vivian Maier? Alison Ferris Senior Curator

32 13 whose streets? fig 22 Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #4 1977

33 checklist whose streets? fig 15 Vivian Maier Untitled, Chicago, May 16, whose streets? All Vivian Maier (American, ) images: Gelatin silver print; printed later Image size: 12 x 12 inches / Paper size: 20 x 16 inches Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York fig 9 Vivian Maier Untitled, n.d. fig 10 Danny Lyon (American, born 1942) Cockroach and his family, Chicago, 1965, printed 2006 Gelatin silver print Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Gift of Jeff Perry in honor of Myron and Jacqueline Blank, fig 11 Vivian Maier Untitled, n.d. FIG 12 Reginald Marsh (American, ) Untitled, 1924 Egg tempera on panel Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Felicia Meyer Marsh Bequest, fig 13 Vivian Maier New York, NY, 1953 fig 14 Harry Callahan (American, ) Providence, 1971, printed Dye transfer print Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Gift of Jeff Perry in honor of Myron and Jacqueline Blank, fig 16 Leon Levinstein (American, ) Untitled (Three children seen through tenement window, New York City),1960s Gelatin silver print Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Gift of Jeff Perry in honor of Myron and Jacqueline Blank, fig 17 Vivian Maier Self-portrait, n.d. fig 18 Ken Heyman (American, born 1930) Hip Shots: People holding hands in a circle, New York, 1985 Gelatin silver print Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Gift of Andrew Tomback and Sally Strauss, fig 19 Vivian Maier Untitled, n.d. fig 20 Garry Winogrand (American, ) Untitled, from Women are Beautiful, c.1965 Gelatin silver print Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Gift of Jeff Perry in honor of Myron and Jacqueline Blank, fig 21 Vivian Maier Florida, January 9, 1957 fig 22 Cindy Sherman (American, born 1954) Untitled Film Still #4, 1977 Gelatin silver print Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Purchased with funds from the Edmundson Art Foundation, Inc.,