I'm puzzled by the question Phillip Hensher asks here - which is: why 'pay good money' to see the Diane Arbus exhibition about to open at the V&A 'when you could just pull down the book from the shelf'? He writes:
Anyone with an interest in photography will know most of the images in an Arbus exhibition intimately.Well, I went to see the Arbus exhibition when I was in New York in April; and my answer to the question is that the photos are well worth the entrance money, if you can afford it. In the end, Phillip Hensher thinks so too - in order 'to look at those great photographs in a solemn setting...' It is, he says, about 'paying respect':
It's not likely that, if you know the photographs well, you will find your understanding enlarged. But Arbus, whose work was concerned with ugliness and physical indignity, has taken on the dignity of high art over the years, and to revisit the familiar is to live, for a time, with that dignity.I think his question and answer are too narrowly framed. Not everyone has the book; not everyone already knows the photographs. Before April, I didn't. An exhibition like this is surely aimed at a wider public than those who already know.
