Doon Arbus

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. 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.

The Caretaker

Elisabeth Sussman

Diane Arbus

Jeff Rosenheim

For more information, please contact Kellie McLaughlin T (212) 946-7130 E kmclaughlin@aperture.org Distributed by Thames & Hudson Ltd. c/o Littlehampton Book Services, Faraday Close, Durrington, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3RB England Customer Service T +44 (0) 1903 828 501 E enquiries@lbsltd.co.uk Direct Order Desk T +44 (0) 1903 828 511 F +44 (0) 1903 828 801/02 E orders@lbsltd.co.uk Diane Arbus A Chronology Diane Arbus: A Chronology is the closest thing possible to reading a contemporaneous diary by one of the most daring, influential, and controversial artists of the twentieth century. Drawn primarily from Arbuss extensive correspondence with friends, family, and colleagues; personal notebooks; and other unpublished writings, this beautifully produced volume exposes the private thoughts and motivations of an artist whose astonishing vision derived from the courage to see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 Arbuss life and work are exhaustively researched footnotes that amplify the entire Chronology. A section at the end of the book provides biographies for fifty-five personalities, 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 ones understanding of her pictures . . . The texts in Diane Arbus: A Chronology originally appeared in Diane Arbus Revelations. This volume makes this invaluable text available in an accessible, paperback volume for the very first time.

A Chronology, 1923-1971

Yolanda Cuomo

Untitled is the third volume of Diane Arbuss work and the only one devoted exclusively to a single project. The photographs were taken at residences for the mentally retarded between 1969 and 1971, in the last years of Arbuss life. Although she considered doing a book on the subject, the vast majority of these pictures remained unpublished prior to this volume. These photographs achieve a lyricism, an emotional purity that sets them apart from all her other accomplishments. Finally what Ive been searching for, she wrote at the time. The product of her consistently unflinching regard for reality as she found it, the images in this book have less in common with the documentary than with the mythic. Untitled may well be Arbuss most transcendent, most romantic vision. It is a celebration of the singularity and connectedness of each and every one of us. For Diane Arbus, this is what making pictures was all about. This is the first edition in which the image separations were created digitally; the files have been specially prepared by Robert J. Hennessey using prints by Neil Selkirk.

Doon Arbus

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