Diane Arbus

Israel, Marvin

Arbus, Doon

Arbus, Diane

Allen Lane.

The Caretaker

Following the death of a renowned and eccentric collector--the author of Stuff, a seminal philosophical work on the art of accumulation--the fate of the privately endowed museum he cherished falls to a peripatetic stranger who had been his fervent admirer. In his new role as caretaker of The Society for the Preservation of the Legacy of Dr. Charles Morgan, this restive man, in service to an absent master, at last finds his calling. The peculiar institution over which he presides is dedicated to the annihilation of hierarchy: peerless antiquities commune happily with the ignored, the discarded, the undervalued and the valueless. What transpires as the caretaker assumes dominion over this reliquary of voiceless objects and over its visitors is told in a manner at once obsessive and matter-of-fact, and in language both cocooning and expansive. A wry and haunting tale, The Caretaker, like the interplanetary crystal that is one of the museum's treasures, is rare, glistening, and of a compacted inwardness. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Kafka or Shirley Jackson may come to mind, and The Caretaker may conjure up various genres--parables, ghost stories, locked-room mysteries--but Doon Arbus draws her phosphorescent water from no other writer's well.

Literature & Fiction

Literary

New Directions

Following the death of a renowned and eccentric collector-author of Stuff, a seminal philosophical work on the art of accumulation-the fate of the privately endowed museum he cherished falls to a peripatetic stranger who had been his fervent admirer. This peculiar institution (The Society for the Preservation of the Legacy of Dr. Charles Alexander Morgan) is dedicated to the annihilation of hierarchy: peerless antiquities commune happily with the ignored, the discarded, the undervalued and the valueless. What transpires as the caretaker assumes dominion over this reliquary of voiceless objects and over its visitors is told in a manner at once obsessive and matter of fact, and in language both cocooning and expansive. A wry and haunting tale, The Caretaker, like the interplanetary crystal that is one of the museum's treasures, is rare, glistening, and of a compacted inwardness. Kafka or Shirley Jackson may come to mind, and The Caretaker may conjure up various genres-parables, ghost stories, locked-room mysteries-but Doon Arbus draws her phosphorescent water from no other writer's well.

United States

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Gordon Fraser

Diane Arbus: A Chronology is the closest thing possible to a contemporaneous diary by one of the most daring, influential and controversial artists of the twentieth century. Drawn primarily from Arbus' extensive correspondence with friends, family and colleagues, personal notebooks and other unpublished writings, this beautifully produced volume reveals the private thoughts and motivations of an artist whose astonishing vision derived from the courage to see things as they are and the grace to permit them simply to be. Further rounding out Arbus' life and work are exhaustively researched footnotes that amplify the entire chronology. A section at the end of the book provides biographies for 55 family members, friends and colleagues, from Marvin Israel and Lisette Model to Weegee and August Sander. Describing the Chronology in Art in America, Leo Rubinfien noted that Arbus…wrote as well as she photographed, and her letters, where she heard each nuance of her words, were gifts to the people who received them. Once one has been introduced to it, the beauty of her spirit permanently changes and deepens one's understanding of her pictures. The texts in Diane Arbus: A Chronology originally appeared in Diane Arbus: Revelations. This volume makes this invaluable material available in an accessible, unique paperback edition for the very first time.

Diane Arbus: A Chronology

Sussman, Elisabeth

Rosenheim, Jeff

Aperture

Le Gardien

Genre Fiction

Rivages *

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