It’s easy to tell ourselves that no time was ever so seedy as the present, just as it’s difficult to imagine members of the silent generation at their prime. How scandalous or sexual could one really be in an era when people were more concerned with church attendance and white picket fences than with discussing their kinks over drinks?
Pretty damn scandalous and sexual.
Now through September 3 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Real Worlds: Brassaï, Arbus, Goldin, co-mingles the works of three of the most influential photographers of modern life. The exhibition invites us to get intimately familiar with the ways in which Brassaï, Diane Arbus and Nan Goldin use the camera to dress up – and undress – the world around them.
The exhibition is structured around MOCA’s nearly comprehensive collection of photographs that appear in three legendary photobooks: Brassaï’s The Secret Paris of the 30’s (1976), the posthumous Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph (1972), and Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1986).
Real Worlds presents a tantalizing trove of approximately one hundred works by the three photographers. There are seedy Parisian scenes, caught red-handed by Brassaï at the types of bars your mother warned you to avoid. Arbus’s uncured portraits force you to look at people you’d usually try to ignore on the sidewalk. Goldin’s work exposes deeply personal segments of her life and her community, and through it all, it feels like a toast to truth. There’s a collective sentiment that rings clearly, “If we’re going down, we’re going all the way down, and we’re doing it together whether you like it or not.”
Cheers.
Brassaï, c. 1931, gelatin silver print, courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection
Nan Goldin, 1983, Cibachrome print, courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Nimoy Family Foundation
Nan Goldin, 1980, Cibachrome print, 14 x 11 in. (35.6 x 27.9 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Nimoy Family Foundation
Brassaï, c. 1932, gelatin silver print, 12 x 8 3/4 in. (30.48 x 22.23 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection
Nan Goldin, 1973, Cibachrome print, 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Nimoy Family Foundation
Nan Goldin, 1980, Cibachrome print, 10 3/4 x 14 in. (27.31 x 35.56 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Nimoy Family Foundation
Brassaï, c. 1932, gelatin silver print, 14 1/2 x 11 in. (36.83 x 27.94 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection
Brassaï, c. 1932, gelatin silver print, courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection
Brassaï, c. 1932, gelatin silver print, courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection
Brassaï, c. 1932, gelatin silver print, 11 7/8 x 9 in. (30.2 x 22.9 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection
Brassaï, c. 1932, gelatin silver print, 15 3/8 x 11 1/4 in. (39.05 x 28.58 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection
Brassaï, c.1932, gelatin silver print, 11 1/4 x 8 3/4 in. (28.6 x 22.2 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection
Diane Arbus, 1965, 1965, gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection
Brassaï, c. 1932, gelatin silver print, 15 1/4 x 11 1/8 in. (38.74 x 28.26 cm), courtesy of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Photography Collection
