“The thing that’s important to know is that you never know. You’re always sort of feeling your way,” Diane Arbus said — a truth that challenges us to acknowledge we are not fully in control of our lives or our destinies, but rather charged to navigate the world with the understanding there is always something that will escape our perception or comprehension. Such wisdom requires that we act with faith, yet remain receptive to what we may uncover along the way, for it is only in the unknown that possibility can be found.
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Photography, being both incredibly precise and prone to all sorts of “accidents,” makes this abundantly clear; for all our intentions, there’s still space for new understandings to emerge. With the portrait, artists explore the landscapes of the physical and psychological worlds simultaneously.
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For Diane Arbus and Carrie Mae Weems, the photograph is a space to consider communities largely misrepresented, marginalized, or erased from the history of Western art. Whether using documentary or staged photographs, Arbus and Weems create tender, thoughtful, and honest portraits that engage with complex issues of identity, gender, and race in contemporary American life.
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