Reflections of Vivian Maier: Anthology - photography exhibition at MK Gallery.
All photographs ©ShaunArmstrong2022
As a documentary photographer, I’ve admired the work of Vivian Maier since she was ‘discovered’ in 2007, along with a fascination in her story, both before and after her work was revealed. From John Maloof’s award-winning documentary Finding Vivian Maier to attending an exhibit and talk by her biographer Ann Marks at PhotoLondon2019, along with reading Ann’s book Vivian Maier Developed upon its recent publication.
So the arrival of the first UK show of a comprehensive Vivian Maier Anthology at my local contemporary gallery, MK Gallery, gave me an opportunity to view much more of her photography up close in a dedicated setting, along with other supporting artefacts and media. This included some taped recordings of her speaking, which ironically, was a highlight for me albeit it was not visual. More of that later.
All photos in this post are unstaged reportage from my first visit (I didn’t get the memo to wear orange but I’m glad some folk did) - if you want to see Vivian Maier's actual photos do buy a book or better still visit MK Gallery www.mkgallery.org - until 25th September 2022.
So, brief background; Vivian Maier came from dysfunctional French heritage to live and work as a nanny in New York and Chicago in the 1950’s to 1970’s. She was also a prolific, gifted, but essentially amateur, despite commercial aspirations, street photographer, who captured all manner of the quotidian with insight and aesthetic.
Her core story is that her work was never really discovered as such until after her death at age 83 in 2009, and even then a considerable volume was never even developed from the original film. And therefore all unseen, even by her. It was only the chance purchase of boxes of ‘unknown’ negatives, film etc. at an auction by a young artist (John Maloof) in 2007 that really got the awareness started, although she had passed before the connection was made and any opportunity to involve her had passed also. More info on the story on Wikipedia. or in Ann Mark’s book - link above.
Why my interest?
Viv and I. Gonna need a bigger hat…
Besides the photography and the romance and intrigue behind her enigmatic story, before and after discovery, what really draws me is what photography meant to her. I think because I see parallels in my own personal relationship with photography. Of how, when you’re in a state of flow visually, you see images everywhere, almost instinctively and you get a hunger for it. In an instant the intersection of subject, line, colour, contrast, shape, texture, expression, movement, light, emotion, reality. But you do it for you; for the split-second satisfaction of both seeing that image and recording it ‘to keep’. And then it’s gone. But it hasn’t. It’s more journey than destination.
This is what I feel is overlooked in the Vivian Maier story. Her keeping the work to herself was not due to her being inheritantly shy, or that she didn’t have funds to develop the film, but that it was just part of her way of moving through life and the satisfaction it gave her of itself, to the point that she didn’t even need to develop the film to see the fruits of her ‘moments’ or risk having to self-critique which is The Photographers Curse. She knew. And that was enough.
What about her photography?
Paper.
It’s good. Some of it (that we see) is very good. An element is exceptional. But with an estimated 140,000 images shot of which the majority weren’t developed and only 3000 or so were ever printed, there is either a considerable amount of good stuff left or possibly, with just some time, technical skill, an exceptional eye, and a decent camera you’re going to get some keepers at that sort of shot-rate.
Also, the other mainstay of the ballooning interest in her photography is the content; the sheer volume of day-to-day life around the cities of mid-century New York and Chicago which wasn’t really documented with the same vigour, diversity and comprehensiveness she brought. They are images of a golden, highly visual, time and this adds to the broad interest, quite distinctly from her actual capability and personal story.
What makes her work extra special, in my opinion, is that she does have ‘the gift’ which I believe defines any good photographer; the creative-sight as I described earlier - a sixth sense to see or anticipate a moment as it unfolds and capture it with panache and instinct in equal measure. Her ability to do this with a film camera and retain the quality that she did underpins her technical skills, but she did mix with professional photographers at stages throughout her life and had aspirations to make and sell postcards, so she had chops. But I’d be super interested to see the other 137,000 images.
Creative-sight. The ability to see, anticipate and capture a moment without staging.
Vivian Maier the person?
Quite a lot has been written about how she was private, lonely, shy and/or poor and these were the driving forces behind her story and photography. I’m not so sure. I agree private, but by choice with whom she wanted to interact with - the other aspects not so much. She approached strangers in the street for certain portraits, found ways to access buildings for images and was not shy to enter crime scenes, celebrity gatherings alongside press stringers and areas of the city that may be considered ‘risky’. She also had a proactive, engaged and valued relationship with her young charges. These are the skills of a confident and self-aware person, not a shy one.
She was also a hoarder, particularly newspapers and magazines which built up significantly as she aged and I suspect the main reason for her moving from jobs with regularity. Parents don’t like weird folk around their children and whilst not enough to give her a bad reference, I suspect this was a driver to ‘help her onward’. She had around 8 tonnes of material in storage when it was auctioned off due to fees not being paid; not because she didn’t have the money necessarily (via Ann Marks) but probably because it slipped her mind or she frankly wasn’t that bothered in the final analysis. If she wasn’t bothered to develop her film, for the reasons I’ve suggested, it was no great shakes to lose them - her enjoyment was at, and in the moment of, taking the images for personal challenge and enjoyment.
Portraits.
Other Multimedia
This anthology is also really interesting as it presents other media and artefacts in addition to the photography. I think, like many photographers, she liked a bit of tech, experimenting with new kit in still and moving image, and audio.
Her Super8 cine footage is blurry and grainy and a little stream-of-conscious but, like her photographs, documents daily life from a time past and this brings charm and interest now, that would not have been the case necessarily at the time. I think Vivian generally had a voyeuristic approach to people and, with her creative-sight and a new toy, was visually fascinated by different ages, peoples’ shapes and clothes and with film, their movement. This is what I see in her films; it’s almost surveillance-like.
One of my favourite parts of the exhibition was, via a ceiling-mounted ‘sonic hairdryer,’ a looped piece of audio Vivian recorded on tape with the children she was Nanny to; asking them questions about themselves, their family and their aspirations in her gentle French-tinged American accent - listening to her voice made her come to life and anchored all that I had read about her, her photography and my view of her. I heard nothing but a relaxed, smart, humorous, self-confident and engaged human.
What did strike me though was her reactions to the answers the children gave; she says “I see” almost 30 times and sometimes, “…I see, I see”.
Now I may be making too much of a leap here but in a way this sums Vivian Maier up, there is no complexity or mystery to her situation, photography or motivation. She just ‘sees’. All the time. This was her gift to herself primarily and we’re lucky to be able to see her images at last.
PS
I have a real problem in exhibitions in that I find myself constantly distracted from the works by other visitors and how they interact, move and present themselves. And want to photograph these moments I see, for shall we say, a little ‘Vivian Tingle’.
The images throughout this post follow this theme and there are a few more below. I also have a gallery of such images (MK Gallery is a rich and local hunting ground) which you can view here.
“I see…”