“As the principle of authenticity marched to the sea, it ignited a million private delusions, and here, Arbus stands dramatically apart. Though it pleads for honesty her work is not confident that honesty solves much, or is even possible. She never proclaims that any liberation can be had, and even as the dreams of her subjects dismay her, she cannot say that they would be better off without them… They must carry their dreams on their faces, and they must see their dreams debunked, she says of her people, and after that, they must take them up again. One might well ask why, if the search will be fruitless, we must search for the authentic at all, but there is no answer to this question, either in Arbus’s pictures or in what she wrote.”
-Leo Rubinfien (on Diane Arbus)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, American Suburb X is great.
