AMY ARBUS
Beyond Reason
August 24 – October 6, 2024
Opening and Artist Reception
Saturday, August 24, 5-7pm
Artist Talk
Sunday, August 25, 4pm
“During the pandemic Amy Arbus was creatively blocked, but in June of last year she fell in love with the circus.
Her new body of work pictures bodies in space called, Beyond Reason. In it she captures trapeze artists, acrobats, hoop divers, contortionists and burlesque dancers from the Flip Circus, Circus Vazquez’s old fashioned small tent traveling show originally from Mexico; Airotic Soiree, a circus style cabaret in NYC; Speigelworld’s The Hook, an Adults Only Variety Show in Atlantic City; and Nutcracker Rouge, Company XIV’s naughty take on the classic ballet in NYC. Amy Arbus’s passion for photography is back!
What happens on stage or in the ring happens so fast that the naked eye is not conscious of seeing it. Amy Arbus made these photographs to stop time so we can ponder these peculiar fleeting moments.
She discovered the profound intimacy between these performers because in most instances, they are depending on each other for their very lives. It makes these acts even more intimate than sex.
With her camera, Amy Arbus has discovered bodies in the exquisite arch of pain, desire and beauty. These performers have made an almost gruesome request of their own bodies to do something beyond reason.”
~ Mike Carroll
Schoolhouse Gallery
My mom wanted me to be in the circus. As a kid, every time I got a Bazooka bubble gum fortune that said something like, “You will be a tight rope walker in the circus,” she would squeal with delight. Even as a nine year old I thought it was odd that she wasn’t more concerned about my safety. But then to me, she was fearless.
Last summer I went to a small tent traveling circus originally from Mexico called Flip Circus. At the top of the show there was an announcement, “Take as many pictures as you want and tag us on Instagram.” For most of my life photography has been prohibited during live performances. Now in service of publicity, it was being encouraged. What an incredible opportunity.
I recognized immediately that photographing the circus would be a natural fit for me. It has all the elements I am drawn to: dramatic lighting, perfectly toned bodies, great costumes and death-defying acts.
In the past year, I have been photographing in towns and cities in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. I have made pictures of trapeze artists, acrobats, hoop divers, aerial dancers, contortionists and burlesque dancers. These performers are affiliated with Circus Vazquez, Aortic Soiree, The Hook, Nutcracker Rouge, Fly by Night Dance Theater and Big Apple Circus.
During the pandemic, because of our enforced isolation, my passion for photography all but disappeared. Without access to people, I wasn’t inspired.
Watching the performers’ extraordinary feats, the audience roars with laughter, gasps, covers their eyes and stares in disbelief. Meanwhile, I am photographing at ten frames per second to capture the action. I look for moments that happen so fast that we are not conscious of seeing them.
These performers depend on each other for their lives. They share a profound connection, which must be even more intimate than sex.
~ Amy Arbus
[Amy] Arbus shoots the heat between moments, where performers’ skill and finesse turn risk-taking into art…Arbus’s photographs become something else for the viewer: a reflection on how one maneuvers through one’s own existence.
~ Pat Kearns, The Provincetown Independent
I recognized immediately that photographing the circus would be a natural fit for me. It has all the elements I am drawn to: dramatic lighting, perfectly toned bodies, great costumes and death-defying acts.
~ Amy Arbus
My mother’s work has been an enormous influence on me, but not literally. By that I mean, my photographs don’t look like hers. That makes it difficult to compare them. What they do share is emotional intensity.
~Amy Arbus
My mom wanted me to be in the circus, I said, “Isn’t that dangerous?” …I look for moments that happen so fast that we are not conscious of seeing them.
~ Amy Arbus
“Amy Arbus is incapable of an uninteresting observation.”
~ Professor Maura Spiegel
Columbia University
Photographer Amy Arbus has published five books, including the award winning On the Street 1980-1990 and The Inconvenience of Being Born. The New Yorker called The Fourth Wall her masterpiece. Her most recent, After Images, is an homage to modernism’s most iconic avant-garde paintings.
Her advertising clients include Marina Rinaldi, Chiat/Day, Foote, Cone and Belding, American Express, Saatchi & Saatchi, SpotCo, New Line Cinema and Nickelodeon. Her photographs have appeared in over one hundred periodicals around the world, including New York Magazine, People, Aperture and The New York Times Magazine.
She has taught portraiture at Maine Media Workshops, the International Center of Photography, NORDphotography, Anderson Ranch Arts Center and The Fine Arts Work Center.
Amy Arbus has had thirty-six solo exhibitions worldwide, and her photographs are a part of the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Theater in Norway, The New York Public Library and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Mitchell•Giddings Fine Arts offers contemporary art in a variety of media, featuring emerging and established artists. Visit us on Main Street in Brattleboro, Vermont.