What Vivian Maier Saw in Color (2018) | Hacker News Reader

What Vivian Maier Saw in Color (2018)

newyorker.com

37 pointsbenbreen17 comments

“One question that has dogged the discovery of Maier’s photography is how a lowly nanny could make such high art. Let’s call that sexism. I’ve never heard anyone ask how another exceptional Chicago outsider, the visionary writer and artist Henry Darger, could have produced his fifteen-thousand-page magnum opus while holding down a job as a janitor.”

Really? That’s precisely the question many people ask about Darger (his stuff is beyond description, you should check it out) or any other Outsider artist, for that matter. Natural talent and genius? Of course. A ton of time available due to loneliness (these artists are mostly alone) to hone your art and practice? Another important factor. And the side effects of that loneliness.

The expression "outsider artist" is so silly, and very reflective of the culture and mindset that engendered it. As if there were a normative "inside" that "real artists" belong to, and that everything else is an anomaly of sorts. Following that definition to its logical conclusion, the overwhelming majority of artists who have lived on this planet have been "outsider artists".

Creating art is a fundamental aspect of the human condition, and this categorization serves no purpose except the ones of pompous art dealers and critics.

Your comment is so pointed and concise that I expected it to be a formal quotation when it reached its end.

The need to feel unique leads people into these camps of delusion. This delusion is up there with the fallacy that art can only come from suffering or that being destitute is a requirement for empathetic art.

I suspect the double minority status plays a part here. That is, it's classism and sexism. If she were a society woman or a male caregiver she might not have been called out on her status.

I'm forever amused by the low status granted to people the gentry put in charge of their children though. Teachers. Nannies. I wonder where stablehand fits on that continuum. Or the person who cares for hunting dogs.

> his stuff is beyond description, you should check it out

How do you do this? I've never been able to find even a partial reprodution of The Story of the Vivian Girls.

There are several books reproducing much of the Vivian Girls [1] and other work, including a catalog[2] published by the museum in Chicago which holds most of his collection. Check your local library.

1. e.g. https://www.abebooks.com/9780929445151/Henry-Darger-Realms-U...

2. https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=3005201109...

I wish I could verbalize why I like her photos so much. Perhaps it's the nostalgia they bring, but honestly it's much more. She had an eye for capturing something interesting among the mundane. The photo of the guy in the yellow shorts/shirt/socks could have been out of a Wes Anderson film.

Something that should be taken into account is that THOSE pictures we see today are edited and color graded by today standards, by people who are aware of Wes Anderson and a lot of other cultural references we all share. Photography is way more than pressing the button and editing/sequencing is a big part of being a photographer. We obviously don't know all the frames contemporary photographers of Vivian Maier had trashed because they didn't fit the aesthetic of those times. Saul Leiter is another examples of that. His color work had been discovered 50 years after being shot. Back in the days B&W photography was all the rage and Color was judged vulgar and restricted to advertising... William Eggleston was the one that conciliate color and art 10 years later in the 60S.

I feel the same way, and I think nostalgia is a big part of it. Not only did she have an eye for capturing interesting things, but she also had a high quality medium format camera to do it with. They’re a much better quality than most pictures we’ve seen of that era, outside of what appeared in magazines.

The medium format quality definititely have nothing to do with it. A lot of people were shooting Rolleiflex in those times, the talent made the difference.

Taste is obviously subjective, but in terms of "all the greats", Maier's style and work is my favorite. Like you, I can't quite explain why, but she definitely had an eye for great photos.

She wasn't highly trained in formalism, in a way that interests photography critics, but did capture a large number idiosyncratic moments.

And it is not very good. His black and white is so much better.

[flagged]

Vivian Maier's photographs are so overrated. She'd be completely forgotten today had she simply exhibited her photos throughout her life instead of being so dramatically and romantically "discovered" at the end.

Absolutely not true. She had a rare eye that combined human insight with an unusual talent for composition with flashes of humour.

She didn't exhibit during her life because there were virtually no outlets for women photographers who weren't born rich and well connected, or who didn't find a way into straight photojournalism.

You don't take photos like this one by accident:

http://cdn.vivianmaier.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/VM1956...

Also notable is that she could not have exhibited these pictures in her lifetime - most of them were left undeveloped.

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