Pierre Leguillon: Arbus Bonus

Europeans take Diane Arbus’ commercial fashion photography much more seriously than Americans do. The French artist Pierre Leguillon focuses on Arbus’ fashion and product photography (executed with her husband, Allan Arbus) to suggest her influence on and participation in postwar American consumer culture. Stacking up piles of periodicals, including Harper’s Bazaar and the New York Times, Leguillon reminds us that Arbus’ kinky aesthetic grew out of a rigorous social conformity she could not escape until her suicide in 1971.