Diane Arbus, Woman on the street with her eyes closed, NYC, 1956
Abstract:
I have been staring at this photograph for a long time. A woman is standing on the sidewalk. Her eyes are closed. The noise and bustle of the street seems to stop for her, remaining inert, silent. I have been trying to break through this image, but it is elusive, it seems closed to me as the woman’s eyes are closed to the world around them. My motivation for this essay is to approach this image not in a visual, but in a theoretical way, so to unlock it, to be able to give it meaning.
I am going to base this approach on a key concept in the theory of surrealism called ‘convulsive beauty’, and the related concepts of ‘the marvellous’ and ‘the uncanny’. My main references are two texts, “The Photographic Conditions of Surrealism” by Rosalind Krauss, and “Photography and Surrealism” by David Bate. Both texts have complementary definitions of convulsive beauty, and are focused in the theoretical analysis of surrealism, especially in regard to photography and photographic images.
Writen as part of the MA Photography: Contemporary and Historical, at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London.