Vivian Maier Unseen

 

 

 

 Vivian Maier: Unseen Work

Fotografiska

281 Park Avenue S.

New York City

Through September 29, 2024

 

 

Is there a sadder story than that of a genius who remains undiscovered in life? Vivian Maier (1926-2009) fits that bill. Very little is known of her other than having been born to an Austrian father and a French mother, the latter of whom apparently had some family land in a French alpine village. Vivian and her siblings lived with their mother and spent their childhood yo-yoing between France and the Bronx, though when Vivian was 25 she was a sweatshop worker in France. She landed in Chicago in 1956 to work as a nanny. That and housekeeping were her primary occupations. She came into some money–probably from the sale of the farm in France–that allowed her to travel in 1959-60, but that soon gave out and she continued her stints as a domestic worker, including cleaning Phil Donahue’s house. As an adult, she lived in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Everywhere she went, she documented street life.

 

Maier was a socialist and a feminist, but from the looks of things, she spent most of what she made on photography. She shot mostly with a medium format Rolliflex and a small Leica, both expensive cameras. One family for whom she nannied helped her when she was elderly and about to be evicted, but Maier’s life came to an end when she slipped on ice and hit her head. By then she was also in default of her storage unit. It and repositories elsewhere contained more 150,000 photos and tons of stock that had never been developed. When this material was auctioned, several collectors realized its value. In the very American-but-sad aftermath, lawsuits have ensued over who owns what.

 

Some of Maier’s story has been told in Finding Vivian Maier, a superb and Oscar-nominated documentary film made in 2013, but new revelations continue to come to light. Some of them are contained within an exhibit at Fotografiska in the Grammercy Park/Triangle Building section of New York. If you’re wondering about the gallery name, New York sports a branch of a photography museum based in Stockholm, Sweden.

 

What a show! Though Maier was unknown in her lifetime, those with an eye for quality rank her among the greatest street photographers in history. Her name is now mentioned in the same breath as Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and Weegee. Personally, I like her work more than that of Arbus, who is often too sensationalist for my taste.

 

Maier worked primarily in black and white, though later she turned to both color photography and video. Those were not her forte. If you have ever doubted me when I have insisted that black and white is more creative that color, it’s on display in Maier’s work. You will see similar poses and subjects in color that are blah compared to her crisp black and white shots. The sharpness of her Rolli doesn’t hurt a bit, nor does the fact that Maier’s own status made her simpatico with most of her subjects. She seldom shot celebrities–a photo of the gorgeous Lena Horne is an exception–and made little effort to glamorize. Somehow, though, dignity comes through, as does Maier’s keen eye for composition.

 

 I couldn’t help but contrast Maier’s images with a retrospective by Bruce Gilden (b. 1946) titled Why These? Why indeed? He likes to go out of his way to present the ugly underbelly of America–as if we don’t get enough of that every day! Maier evoked sympathy; Gilden made me want to hurl, as did his screw-you artist statement. A brisk walk through his exhibit was more than I needed to see.

 

But back to the positive. Let Maier’s images speak for themselves. If you’ve never seen the aforementioned documentary, it’s on numerous streaming sites.

 

Rob Weir

 

Lovely action capture

French children

She had a series on sleeping people!

Either the corner grocer or a tax man!

Lena Horne

Gosh, Frank. Whacha think it is?

Could be a film noir scene

Making the mundane interesting

Self-portrait with a twist.

Like many poor shutterbugs, she was her own model