After a year-long run at LUMA Arles in the south of France, where it was first unveiled from May 2023 to May 2024, the most comprehensive exhibition ever produced on the career of Diane Arbus now arrived in New York City, returning it to the streets that shaped it.
The show’s journey is made possible by the LUMA Foundation, established in 2004 by Swiss philanthropist Maja Hoffmann. More than a patron, LUMA functions as a production engine for contemporary work that grapples with urgent questions like climate, culture, human rights, and education.
Down a long, shadowy corridor, a glowing light lures you in, drawing you into the singular world of Diane Arbus. Transporting you from the present moment into the strange, luminous terrain of her gaze.
Just beyond the entrance, a timeline traces the arc of her life, from her early years growing up in New York City to her most defining achievements. Arbus began her creative path alongside her husband Allan, working as a fashion stylist before turning to photography herself. Her vision sharpened while studying under Lisette Model between 1955 and 1957, eventually emerging on her own with her series “Portraits of Eccentrics”, published in Harper’s Bazaar in 1961.
Arbus’s images soon appeared in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications. She was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships, in 1963 and 1966, and she grew with the now-iconic 1967 “New Documents” exhibition at MoMA. After her death in 1971, Arbus became the first American photographer to be featured at the Venice Biennale, a famous art festival, the following year.
In the same room, a projector quietly casts a shifting stream of eyes. Close-ups from portraits we’re about to encounter. It’s an intimate prologue, each gaze offering a glimpse into the lives and untold stories that fill the exhibition.
Inside the exhibition hall, hundreds of photographs, 455 to be exact, displayed across the space in a sprawling installation. A mirror at the far end of the room doubles the view, making the constellation of faces and figures seem endless. It’s a powerful testament to the beauty, complexity, and strangeness of simply being human.
Photographer Neil Selkirk, a former student of Diane Arbus and the only person ever authorized to print her work, reflects on the meticulous care behind each gelatin silver print. His words echo the spirit of the exhibition, where every image carries the weight of her relentless pursuit.
“The photography of Diane Arbus is the result of this tireless search,” he writes, “the sum of countless hours of walking, dictated as much by the element of chance as by the indescribable intuition of instinct.”
Over three decades, Neil Selkirk held onto a single printer’s proof of each image he printed, quiet testaments to the care and craft behind Diane Arbus’s legacy. In 2011, the LUMA Foundation acquired this rare, hand-selected collection.
Reflecting on the delicate responsibility of preserving Arbus’s vision, Selkirk writes, “In order to be certain that I was not merely interpreting her work, I undertook, whenever one was available, to try to duplicate an existing print that she had made of each image.”
“The objective and the definition of success remained the same: to make prints such that no one could tell from the resulting characteristics of the image itself, whether it was she or I who had printed it.” In every detail, Selkirk’s work became an act of devotion, echoing Arbus without ever casting a shadow of his own.
Selkirk imagined Arbus’s work not as a linear progression, but as a web of interconnected moments, images bound together by an invisible thread of gazes, gestures, and meaning, “Like Diane Arbus in New York, the viewer is invited to wander, pass by, go around and across. There isn’t a standard route, but an infinite number of possibilities.”
The exhibition concludes with a screening that pays tribute to Arbus’s groundbreaking approach to photography, one that sets her apart from other photographers. The film, What Diane Arbus Wasn’t Doing, And How She Wasn’t Doing It, features a thoughtful conversation between Neil Selkirk and Darius Himes, International Head of Photographs at Christie’s. Filmed at LUMA Arles, the dialogue offers a deeper look into Arbus’s vision, what she chose to show, and just as powerfully, and the photographic narratives she refused to play into.
Arbus’s world isn’t contained within these walls, it breathes and grows with every look, every held gaze. In this constellation of faces, the hidden stories quietly wait to be seen.
“Diane Arbus: Constellation” is on view until August 17, 2025 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York.
