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Review: ‘Crossing Paths with Vivian Maier’ at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 3rd October – 26th October 2014

Artists: Cherine Fahd, Vivian Maier, Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano, Debra Phillips, Patrick Pound, Clare Rae, Simone Slee, David Wadelton And Kellie Wells and Vivian Maier.

Curators: Naomi Cass, Louise Neri and Karra Rees

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
East 108th Street. September 28, 1959, New York, NY
1959
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Just slightly overrated…..

Apologies to the wonderful and hard working Director of the CCP Naomi Cass for what I am about to say, but this is one of the most disappointing photographic exhibitions in Melbourne this year.

Let’s start with the Australian work. There is nothing at all wrong with any of the Australian work. Some of it is very strong, such as the found images of Patrick Pound and the social documentary work of David Wadelton. The problem comes with the lack of connection to the photographs of Vivian Maier. For work that is supposed to be “crossing paths” conceptually with the images of Maier many of the connections are so esoteric as to be almost indistinguishable, so obtuse (as Tim Robbins would say in the Shawshank Redemption) as to be almost unintelligible to the uninitiated. Where the work is conceptualised around the performative context of identity and the occupation of space(s), such as in Claire Rae’s digital colour lightbox images of people jumping in the air stopped in suspended animation or the beautiful reinscription of the body in the almost dance like video work of Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano, then the juxtaposition simply does not work. The ties that bind one to another simply are not strong enough to sustain the inquiry of the viewer. More interesting would have been the investigation of the concept of an artist taking photographs in her own time, hidden, secretive, and then being discovered later after she had died – which brings up issues of visibility (the cameras and her gendered own), celebrity, posthumous recreation of identity, the fame of the artist after death, and how the self-portraits fit into this theme etc…

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The photographs by Vivian Maier printed by ? are far more disappointing.

Touted as the NEXT BIG THING by curators who are always looking for the next big thing and people out to make a healthy buck or two, VM is a person who has been “posthumously invented” and her work, which was largely unprinted during her lifetime, has been brought to market in a commercial process. As Abigail Solomon-Godeau notes at the end of her excellent essay “Inventing Vivian Maier” on the Jeu de Paume website:

“Here one can see how the terms of an “aesthetic” discourse within the world of contemporary photography, turning on the individual author and her work, and the far less lofty realities of market and marketing, property relations, public relations, media relations and all the other apparatuses, illuminate one another, or even collide. “Her big project,” remarks Michael Williams, “was her life,” but perhaps the even larger project is her posthumous invention.” Abigail Solomon-Godeau. “Inventing Vivian Maier,” on the Jeu de Paume website, 16th September 2013 [Online] Cited 26/06/2021.

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With this invention in mind (and the product that you want to sell being paramount), you would have thought that the people who now control her archive would have got a damn good black and white printer to print the work. But no. Some of the prints are appalling, so flat that there is little if any true black in them at all. As for the content of the images, they look better in reproduction than they do in real life. Maier, as I have said elsewhere, is a competent photographer – but she will never be a great photographer. Periodically (and I use the word my female friend supplied) she is very good, but too often she lapses into cliche. There are lots of low depth of field photographs but the construction of the images is cold and stilted, there is little engagement it would seem but for the snap of the shutter as she wanders around city after city, keeping the resulting negatives securely hidden.

There is also little mystery in her photographs which is probably why they don’t rise to that next level: look at the photograph of the two men staring at a length of hose on the ground on a rainy street in NY. The hose just sits there, the men are caught mid-gesture… and that’s it. Lots of her photographs are like this. And there also seem to be some anger towards the world as well. If you compare the photograph of the two boys, Undated, Canada (below) with that of the twins by Diane Arbus, there seems to be a darkness and maelevolence to VM’s photograph that contrasts with the mystery and joy in that of Arbus – not so much in the subject matter but in the feeling that the photographer projects towards what she is photographing.

There is a coldness when you see the prints in the flesh (like the wind whistling off Lake Michigan onto the Chicago streets), an ice chill, a lack of humour, something that is a little creepy and screwy (if you will pardon the colloquialism) about the work. She wants us to know she is there in the photograph, even when she is not physically present, as in the image September 18, 1962 (below) where the viewer understands that the photographer is down on one knee to get the shot. There is also a healthy dose of narcissism in the photographs: the self-portraits with this serious woman peering back at us, one who’s eyes hardly ever smile (you can tell a lot from a person’s eyes!) are not psychological investigations like the self-portraits of Rembrandt as he ages throughout the years – portraits in which Rembrandt explores what it is to be him – they are something more obsessive which VM then hides under a bushel. The use of fragmentation and shadows in the two self-portraits that I have put together (New York City, September 10, 1955 and Self-Portrait; October 18, 1953, New York, NY, below) speak of a schism inside the person, one who exposes herself through photography and then possesses but disclaims the results.

People have been flocking to see the film with sold out sessions all over the city, and they were flocking into the CCP to see the exhibition last Saturday when we were there. People love the back story as it has been sold to them by “marketing, property relations, public relations, media relations and all the other apparatuses” and there has been a veritable feeding frenzy about this work: THE DISCOVERY OF KING TUT’S TOMB WITH 100,000 NEGATIVES AND ASSORTED ARTEFACTS!

Kudos to the CCP for getting these images to Australia and exhibiting them and its great to see so many people in the gallery but please, let’s understand the hype and then really look at the work. The ART in FACT is that these are not well printed images, and most of them are pretty prosaic in composition and feeling. There are maybe four really good images, but that is about it. As always, go and see for yourself and keep my words in mind.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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Many thankx to the CCP for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“I don’t believe in reincarnation but in a previous life I did!”

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Frederick White

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
August 1960. Chicago, IL
1960
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Undated, Canada
Nd
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Diane Arbus
Identical twins, Roselle, N.J. 1967
1967
© The Estate of Diane Arbus

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Self-Portrait, 1950ies
c. 1950s
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Armenian woman fighting on East 86th Street, September, 1956, New York, NY
1956
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
April 7, 1960. Florida
1960
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
January 1956
1956
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
January, 1953, New York, NY
1953
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Self-Portrait, 1953
1953
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Undated, Canada
Nd
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
July 1957. Chicago Suburb, I
1957
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
January 9, 1957, Florida
1957
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

One of the most atmospheric and mysterious of Maier’s photographs.

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Self-Portrait, New York, February 3, 1955
1955
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
March 1954, New York, NY
1954
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
May 16, 1957. Chicago, IL
1957
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
June 1963. Chicago, IL
1963
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

During her lifetime, Vivian Maier (1926-2009) produced more than 100,000 photographic images, which remained largely undiscovered until after her death. CCP celebrates this reluctant artist’s timely relevance, juxtaposing her work with contemporary Australian photography, performance and video.

Maier’s prolific body of work recording both herself and the world around her – predominately with a distinctive medium format Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera – is a precursor to our age of compulsive photographic documentation via smart phones and digital media. The posthumous construction of her identity is almost as compelling as her images and her ability to determine and frame a gripping moment with poignancy and beauty. Time has been Maier’s collaborator, where nostalgia plays a significant role in the popularity of her archive.

In Crossing Paths with Vivian Maier, Maier’s photography – printed well after her death – is presented with contemporary Australian artists working in still, moving and found photography and who also document the street and themselves in an equally obsessive manner.

Against the gritty street life captured by her probing lens, Patrick Pound responds with second-hand images gleaned from junk shops and the Internet, while Debra Phillips and David Wadelton make an inventory of the city and its quirky features. Maier’s self-portraits reverberate with Australian women artists who turn the camera on themselves in performative ways, in the work of Cherine Fahd, Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano, Clare Rae, Simone Slee and Kellie Wells.

Text from the CCP website

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
May 27, 1970. Chicago, IL
1970
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
May 28, 1954, New York, NY
1954
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
New York City, September 10, 1955
1955
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Self-Portrait; October 18, 1953, New York, NY
1953
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Undated, New York, NY
Nd
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
New York, NY
1954
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Self-Portrait, 1959
1959
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Undated, New York, NY
Nd
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
October 31, 1954. New York, NY
1954
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
July 27, 1954. New York, NY
1954
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
September 18, 1962
1962
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
September 1956, New York, NY
1956
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Untitled, Undated
Nd
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Love this one, with feeling

The balloons for a celebration
The exit sign
How he looks distractedly off camera into the distance
How her hands are clenched anxiously together
How she looks sad and lonely, looking off camera

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Untitled, Undated
Nd
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Undated, Vancouver, Canada
Nd
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Untitled, Undated
Nd
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 30.5cm
Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery

Centre for Contemporary Photography
404 George St, Fitzroy
Victoria 3065, Australia
Phone: + 61 3 9417 1549

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Sunday 11am – 5pm

Centre for Contemporary Photography website

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Exhibition: ‘Vivian Maier: Photographs from the Maloof Collection’ at the Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Exhibition dates: 15th December 2011 – 26th January 2012

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Untitled (portrait of a woman)
date unknown
© Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery

Another photographer who is getting more recognition. Out of the work I have seen the portraits are the strongest. Some of them feel like precursors to the confronting portraits of women made by Diane Arbus while others offer a more reflective, contemplative examination of human presence.

Marcus

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Many thankx to Alicia Colen for her help and to the Howard Greenberg Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting.

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Untitled
c. 1950’s
© Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery

Howard Greenberg Gallery is proud to present the recently discovered work of street photographer, Vivian Maier (1926-2009), from the Maloof Collection.

A nanny by trade, Vivian Maier’s street and travel photography was discovered by John Maloof in 2007 at a local auction house in Chicago. Always with a Rolleiflex around her neck, she managed to amass more than 2,000 rolls of films, 3,000 prints and more than 100,000 negative which were shared with virtually no one in her lifetime. Her black and white photographs-mostly from the 50s and 60s-are indelible images of the architecture and street life of Chicago and New York. She rarely took more than one frame of each image and concentrated on children, women, the elderly, and indigent. The breadth of Maier’s work also reveals a series of striking self-portraits as well as prints from her travels to Egypt, Bangkok, Italy, and the American Southwest, among dozens of other international cities.

“My fascination with her story has only grown, as has my involvement with her photographs. It is such an unusual story with no resolution. At first her images are extremely well seen, quality photographs of life on the street, in New York City and Chicago. But as one looks at the body of her work, she reveals her deeper interests. Then one tries to imagine who she was, what motivated her, her personality. It is not everyday that one becomes so involved and even obsessed with a particular photographer,” comments Howard Greenberg.

What little is known about Maier’s life is the result of John Maloof’s extensive research. He discovered her obituary on line in 2009 which was just the beginning of his investigative work. An American of French and Austro-Hungarian extraction, Maier split her time between Europe and the US, returning to NY in 1951. In 1956, she ultimately settled in Chicago where she worked as nanny for more than forty years. For a brief period in the 1970s she worked as a nanny to journalist, Phil Donahue’s children. Towards the end of her life, Maier was supported by the children she had cared for in the early 50s. Unbeknownst to them, one of Maier’s storage lockers (containing her massive group of negatives) was auctioned off due to delinquent payments.

After purchasing the first collection of Maier photographs in 2007, Maloof acquired more from another buyer at the same auction. He has since established the Maloof Collection to promote the work of Vivian Maier and to safeguard the archive for future generations. The archive consists of approximately 100,000 to 150,000 negatives; over 3,000 prints; hundreds of rolls of film; home movies; audio tape interviews, and other items representing roughly 90% of Maier’s work. Through Maloof’s efforts, Vivian Maier’s photographs have been exhibited internationally and have received significant critical attention. In November, Powerhouse Books will publish Vivian Maier: Street Photographer, edited by Maloof with a foreword by Geoff Dyer. John Maloof is also co-producing a documentary about Vivian Maier.

Press release from the Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Untitled
c. 1950’s
© Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Uptown West, New York, NY, January 26, 1955
1955
© Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
Untitled, Chicago, May 16, 1957
1957
© Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery

Vivian Maier (American, 1926-2009)
New York City, Self-Portrait, September 10th, 1955
1955
© Vivian Maier/Maloof Collection, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery

Howard Greenberg Gallery
The Fuller Building
41 East 57 Street
Suite 1406
New York, NY 10022
Phone: 212.334.0010

Gallery hours:
Tuesday – Friday 10.00am – 5.00pm

Howard Greenberg Gallery website

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