Beyond the Horizon

She contrasted the fashion world with the eccentric, outlandish, marginalized faces of a pulsating metropolis. Born in New York City in 1923, Diane Arbus worked her way from photojournalism into the glamorous fashion world. It was not until she came into contact with the Austrian portrait photographer Lisette Modell that the dam broke for a world apart from the perfect: travesty artists, people with visible disabilities, single mothers or fully tattooed men henceforth dominated her artful, psychologically accentuated portraits. Although she was featured as part of a trio in the 1967 New Documents exhibition at MoMa, she never completely turned her back on journalism, working regularly for newspapers like the New York Times and fashion magazines like Harper's Bazaar.

Arbus committed suicide in 1971, at the age of 48. A year later, the first U.S. pavilion at the Venice Biennale was dedicated to her. Arbus left behind a Solomonic oeuvre that does justice to both the immaculate and the outlandish; two worlds between which her depression could unfold unchecked. The Art.Salon commemorates the great artist, who would have turned 100 today.