Vivian Maier, Self Portrait, New York 1953.
I had never been to Milton Keynes - if we can discount a night many years ago spent in its bizarre and sadly now closed Youth Hostel - so when I noticed that there was a Vivian Maier exhibition on at the MK Gallery and that MK was more or less on the line of the drive home from our Essex holiday, I thought this was a chance to investigate two putative legends in one day.
A bit like VM, MK is very much a one-off. One of several new towns planned and built mostly in the 1960s, It came out of nowhere and is now the subject of several legends which may or may not be based on fact: for example, that it never rains in MK; or that its main thoroughfare is aligned with the sun’s rays at the midsummer solstice; or its concrete cows were once repainted with pyjamas on; or that it is haunted by the ghost of Dick Turpin.
And VM? She is entering the realms of legend, too. Her posthumous trajectory from anonymity to fame is now well- known. For anyone who has missed out – she was a New York-based nanny who photographed secretively and obsessively throughout her life creating, apparently, 150,000 images. When she died in poverty these and other possessions weighing about 8 tons were stored in a New York lock-up to be randomly discovered in 2007, printed and displayed to an acclaim she had not sought in her lifetime. So, since comparatively little is known about her or her life, her rise to the status of legend has been unhampered by too many facts. And perhaps unsurprisingly, given the brouhaha about her life, her legacy and her copyright, the pictures themselves seem to have been a bit in the background.
There were about 150 photos in the exhibition “Vivian Maier: Anthology” at the MK Gallery, set out in several spacious and well-lit rooms. The curator, Anne Morin, had taken the tasteful decision to make very few comments but there were panels with a few paragraphs by other commentators which give a helpful range of views. And, wonderfully, there was not a black or white frame in sight: the photographs were in proper wooden frames. Ten out of ten for that.
There is no doubt at all that Vivian Maier was a talented photographer but for me, two things at the exhibition were particularly noticeable: the first was her speed of reaction; and the other was the range of images. In both of the photographs below she has caught in an instant a characteristic urban expression, somewhere between pugnacious and defensive. (Some might think it particular to New York but I think it is more universal and can be seen any day in any big city.) As a photographer you need to be pretty quick and pretty pugnacious yourself to catch that fleeting look.
But she also caught the quieter moments, too.
Other photos in the exhibition ranged from the abstract to the gritty and on to the surreal - like the one below.
There was a real mixture which amounted perhaps to a kind of mosaic without any particular pattern. Mid-century New York is a bit of an overworked trope now photographically, but the wall panel commentaries did a heroic job of trying to detect themes in the work. I think the truth though is that the photographs are captivating but random. She photographed anything that caught her eye. What’s wrong with that?
Two legends in one day is not bad going. Neither could happen again: Milton Keynes because that kind of central planning is so out of favour now; and Vivian Maier because it’s unlikely that today’s digital capture and storage would survive her death. So hurray for the twentieth century and its analogue ways.
All photos ©Estate of Vivian Maier, Courtesy of Maloof Collection and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY.
The exhibition Vivian Maier: Anthology continues at Milton Keynes Gallery until September 25th.