Diane and Kerry are two american artists from 20th century with identity themed works. Today they are both exhibited in Met Bruer in New York.
Diane Arbus was born in 1923 to a high society family in New York. She grew up with her family supporting her to be an artist but she only started taking photography lessons after she already had works on magazines such as Vogue. Her style changed with the lessons and he focused on the identities and lives of unusual people, and often “misfits”. For example she took pictures of extremely tall people or people with mental or physical limitations, and transvestites. She showed the faces of minorities to the viewer in a way that the viewer almost felt like the people on the photograph is looking back. Her photos are only showing portraits but they give the understanding of a life behind that scene. As Diane sad “The more a photograph tells you the less you know.” When I looked at her photographs for the first time I was hypnotized by how much I could emphasize with the people I saw. I felt like I just listened to all of their life stories a minute ago. I almost felt their not acceptance to the society and the photographs felt like a passport to enter their lives.
Kerry James Marshal was born in 1955 at Alabama. He studied BFA at Otis Art Institute in LA and became a painter. As a black man himself, he focused on african-american history and the identities of black people in the society. His work includes collages and many writings on his paintings. His canvases are usually very colorful except from the blacks as skin colors creating a contrast. I was most impress by his personal pieces describing people from his family because they included personal items and moments from daily life.
When I went there and saw both of them one after another It gave me the feeling of two different worlds with two different kinds of people because Diane focused on extraordinary people and their place in the society and Kerry focused on stereotypical representations of black people in society. Yet we are all living in the same world and it is their point of views that makes their art both so close to, and different from each other.
