What Diane Arbus Was Searching For

The first complete presentation of Diane Arbus’s Untitled series is on view through December 15, 2018, at David Zwirner’s West 20th Street location in New York. The 66 images were made at residences for people with developmental disabilities, places Arbus repeatedly returned to for picnics, for dances, and at Halloween between 1969 and 1971, the last years of her life. The exhibition includes several images that have never before been exhibited.

“The Untitled photographs—direct, enigmatic portraits of the residents of these facilities—are a radical departure from the bold, confrontational images upon which Arbus’s formidable reputation largely stands,” writes the gallery in a statement. The work was a revelation for Arbus: “FINALLY what I’ve been searching for,” she wrote at the time.

The photographs in this series are lyrical and tender, documenting a world possessed of its own rituals and codes of conduct that somehow remain familiar.

In 1969, as her project began to take shape, Arbus wrote her husband, Allan: “It’s the first time I’ve encountered a subject where the multiplicity is the thing. I mean I am not just looking for the BEST picture of them. I want to do lots.”

The exhibition marks the inauguration of David Zwirner and Fraenkel Gallery’s collaboration as co-representatives of The Estate of Diane Arbus.