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Photographer Diane Arbus was born in 1923 and committed suicide in 1971, but her photographs retain their extraordinary and unsettling power. Alvin Hall sets out to ask why.

After Arbus鈥檚 death and the 1972 New York MoMA exhibition, which launched her posthumous fame, attention has often focused on her death and the more lurid details of her biography. Alvin and a cast of artists, photographers, writers and curators turn instead to consider her art.

In a series of encounters recorded on location in Arbus鈥檚 home city of New York and through the photographer's own words, they set out to evoke the atmosphere and power of her photographs, their creation and the influence they鈥檝e had over generations of photographers who have wrestled with how to make portraits after Arbus.

Featuring responses to Arbus鈥檚 work from photographers Tina Barney, Ming Smith, Bill Jacobson and Deana Lawson. Alvin also speaks to Roxana Marcoci, Senior Curator in the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; journalist and biographer Arthur Lubow; Elisabeth Sussman, Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art; and curator, writer and photography critic Vince Aletti.

Diane Arbus's readings are edited selections from the 1972 film Going Where I've Never Been: The Photography of Diane Arbus, voiced by Mariclare Costello.

Written and presented by Alvin Hall.

Producer: Michael Umney

A Just Radio production for 麻豆官网首页入口 Radio 4 first broadcast in 2023.