Talk:Diane Arbus

Oddly sanitised presentation
In light of the content referred to in Parul Sehgal's book review, here, and abundant other material of this sort, how can we present such an oddly and utterly sanitised view of this artist's life, in particular, as captured by the ridiculously circumspect sentence Her methods included establishing a strong personal relationship with her subjects and re-photographing some of them over many years. For goodness sake, there is ample documentary evidence—citation-worthy, documentary evidence, including statements from friends and partners—-see Sehgal's matter of fact discourse, above, and Alex Mar's at TheCut.com to start-- that it was a regular pattern of this photographer to engage in sexual relations with her subjects--perhaps not indiscriminately, because she was driven by an artist's eye, at least in part, in the choice of her subjects and conquests, but certainly with profligacy. Why is this subject ignored/skirted? From what sensibility are we working, to keep the article thus inaccurate, forcing readers to find accuracy elsewhere?

Worse, the article dissembles in its making no mention of the deceptions that appear to have been a part of Arbus' relationships with the broad array of her subjects, including Arbus'—who apparently nearly always, in her artistic endeavours, worked without obtaining releases—misrepresentating herself as inept rather than expert, certain publicly destined work as private, topless female shots as head shots only, photographs take to earn eventual profit as being otherwise, etc. In this regard, begin with the Alex Mar piece, and go from there.

In short, this article represents a sanitised portrayal, for apparent protective motivations that one cannot fathom (given the abundance of source material to the contrary), a portrayal that is inaccurate to the title subject. 2601:246:C700:558:3504:6D63:2F75:5E4 (talk) 03:53, 29 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I would like to note that the family of Diana Arbus is not emigrants from Soviet Russia, her maternal grandfather, the founder of the Russek store, Frank_Russek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Russek came to the USA back in the 80s and 90s of the 19th century, about the paternal line unknown, she could emigrate how to both before the revolution and after 37.54.230.242 (talk) 23:11, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
 * If people are going to learn that Arbus possibly did not tell her subjects the truth, they will learn this from reading the article by Alex Mar. Here is a link to it. Arbus’ Wikipedia article does not have enough space to cover what she told her subjects.  Alex Mar has enough space. Brent Brant (talk) 15:37, 13 June 2024 (UTC)