Cataclysm: The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited, now on view at David Zwirner, begins with the original show’s critical reception. Incendiary excerpts from reviews decorate the lobby. Many express open dislike for Arbus’s work, the selected quotes evincing revulsion masquerading as fake ethics. It’s often unclear if the writers imagined themselves siding with Arbus’s exploited subjects against her (“Who wants to be a freak at the Museum of Modern Art?”) or were mad at Arbus for confronting them with these repellent oddities in the first place (“They are losers almost to a man.”).
