Fotografiska opens exhibition of street photographer Vivian Maier

ERR reports that Fotografiska, an exhibition venue, has opened an exhibition of Vivian Maier, one of the 20th century’s best-known and most mysterious street photographers. Her contribution to photography was discovered only after her death.

Vivian Maier: Discovered Works presents the work of the New York-born amateur photographer, who later lived in France and the United States. Maier worked as a nanny in New York and photographed everyday life around her as a hobby from the early 1950s to the mid-1980s.

The exhibition features nearly 200 works, including vintage and contemporary photographic prints, colour and black-and-white photographs, Super 8 films and audio recordings. It offers a broad view of post-war America and the darker side of the American dream.

It took decades for Maier’s work to come to light and gain wider recognition. Her photography is now part of the history of the medium, and she is compared with major 20th-century photographers.

Maarja Loorents, Fotografiska’s head of exhibitions, said Maier’s story was exceptional in several ways. She said John Maloof, who bought Maier’s entire collection of negatives, played an important role in bringing the work to public attention.

“Vivian herself was actually an invisible person, and she saw those invisible people who moved along the streets, dozed on park benches or simply wandered around,” Loorents said. “She knew how to notice people who might otherwise have gone unnoticed and capture them with her camera.”