Picture Window

I've just got back from a trip to London. Saw Kristin Hersh play a fearsome and beautiful set at the Scala, and also went to the Diane Arbus exhibition, Revelations, at the V&A.

I was hoping that seeing the exhibition would resolve some of my mixed feelings about Arbus, but I remain resolutely in - at least - two minds about her work. Possibly this is the point though - it's clearly not meant to be "easy", and therefore maybe being fascinating is more than sufficient.

The exhibition is really nicely done, with a chronological and fairly comprehensive selection of her work - mostly original Arbus prints, quite a few not seen before. In the galleries are also three "libraries" - rooms containing contact sheets, journals, letters, her cameras, and even a whole collage of work prints and newspaper cuttings transported from the wall of her studio. I haven't really seen anything quite like this at an exhibition before, and I really appreciated it as a supreme bit of context - as a photographer I always like to see something of the process behind work, but more generally it gave some insight into the question that comes to mind when I see many Arbus pictures - who made this?