Just come back from having a quick peek at the Diane Arbus exhibition at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh on what has turned out to be a grey, blustery March afternoon.
Other than knowing she was a famous photographer, and having seen a few of her pictures on Wikipedia, my knowledge of the great lady’s work was (and is) limited. Plus, I don’t much like going to galleries – institutionalised art, people standing around, you getting in their way, they in yours, people with headphones on looking distracted, a slightly stuffy atmosphere… a sense of curated jewels of the past.
But the Dean Gallery is a bit of a cracker. Beautifully appointed, wonderful shades of blue paint in the reception area, a great sense of a stately home…and all open to the great unwashed - including my good self, in a metaphorical sense of course.
And the exhibition – quite surprising. It’s free for a start – and why, I wonder? Loads of pictures on show, each one superbly commented on, must have cost someone a fortune to put together so well. Taxpayers of the world rejoice, I suppose….Contrast this with the Seurat exhibition at the Frankfurt Schirn we saw recently, which was poor in comparison and charged around 8 Euros to get in. Hm.
Well, if you’re into Arbus’ kinda stuff – black and white square shots of all sorts of oddities and misfits - dwarfs, people in mental asylums, giants, people with masks on, people tattooed all over – then get yourself to the Dean.
I decided that I’m not. Mankind can only take so much reality as Mr. Eliot said….. And seeing a couple on the way out – her with 1960s beehive, him with tattooes covering his whole neck. – I decided to scuttle away, away from the clicking of a camera lens at society’s edges, an eye into closed world, and back to the safer scenery of my own virtual world.
Sunday 21 March 2010
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