Vivian Maier, American, born in New York in 1926, worked as a nanny, but it is wrong, if not belittling, to reduce her to the character of the nanny that is so popular in photographic narrative.
Contemporary of William Klein, Garry Winogrand, Richard Avedonjust to name three sacred monsters, Vivian Maier, didn’t care about all the possible recognitions. In the years in which periodical publishing was expanding and acquiring extraordinary importance, the ambition of photographers was to obtain commissions and publications in newspapers. While the indomitable Vivian, regardless of what was happening to photography, took pictures, day after day, probably on weekends, during lunch breaks or after a work shift. Maybe.
150,000 negatives
An unstoppable production, from the 50s to the 90s, which includes American street life, portraits and self-portraits. It seems incredible that it remained invisible. To us, selfie maniacs, obsessed with the self, slaves of appearance, victims of judgement, it becomes incomprehensible that she chose it, that she avoided the need for success and recognition. Probably while he was photographing he was experiencing that magical moment of conjunction in which the fire of passion finds its way out and is realized. Isn’t that enough to mark the days of a lifetime? And live it every day, several times a day. Without masters, without chains.
He kept all his production without worrying about where it went. He preserved it without much conviction. Maybe he left it to chance, maybe he didn’t think about it at all, maybe his passion was exhausted in the act of fulfilling himself by photographing. Maybe.
The treasure in a box
Vivian Maier carried her archive with her as long as she could. Then she kept it in a box, then from one box to another until her death in 2009. We wouldn’t be here talking about her if John Maloof, of Chicago, hadn’t purchased the entire contents of a box placed outside. auction for arrears. There, he found the treasure of Vivian Maier the anchorite.
The exhibition
Al Belvedere, Royal Palace of Monzauntil January 26, UNSEEN, the never-seen photos of Vivian Maier.
Edited as always by Ann Morinwhich deals with Maier’s work with serious and sincere devotion, the exhibition offers 200 color and black and white printsas well as contact sheets, original audio recordings with the photographer’s voice, Super 8 films visible for the first time and various objects that belonged to her, such as Rolleiflex and Leica cameras.
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