by Olivia Noss // Oct. 31, 2025
This article is part of our feature topic Weird.
Diane Arbus is known for her striking portraits that capture those on the fringes of society. Her retrospective ‘Diane Arbus: Konstellationen’ at Gropius Bau offers the largest survey of her work thus far, featuring 454 darkroom prints, most of which were shot between the late 1950s up until her death in 1971. The show, whose title directly translates to “Constellations,” blends the highly varied subject matter of Arbus’ archive and showcases her work by tone rather than chronology or theme. The resulting exhibition offers insight into the life of an artist with an insatiable desire to enter spaces largely forbidden to her, either due to unspoken social contracts or the insulated nature of her upper-class background, one which she continuously pushed against throughout her lifetime. In doing so, Arbus employed the camera as a way to enter novel social situations, producing what are widely considered weird and fascinating portraits.
Diane Arbus: ‘Untitled (4),’ 1970-71 // © The Estate of Diane Arbus, Collection Maja Hoffmann/LUMA Foundation
The eccentricities of her images, paired with a certain darkness or melancholy in tone, lend an inherently transgressive quality to Arbus’ works. “Freaks”—as they were referred to at the time—were a central concern within her practice. This included people with unusual characteristics, such as biological rarities and disfigurations: small people, pituitary giants or those possessing extra limbs. She also pointed her lens onto queer communities, particularly lesbians, drag queens and sex workers. In her portraits, Arbus describes “a point between what you want people to know about you, and what you can’t help people knowing about you.” This concept is what she coined “the gap between intention and effect.” Arbus is able to carefully capture this chasm—her subjects often earnestly present themselves one way, and, upon second glance, one may find something entirely unexpected magnified through the mechanism of the camera. This provides a grotesque beauty to Arbus’ images that feels distinctly human.
Diane Arbus: ‘Two female impersonators backstage, N.Y.C.,’ 1962 // © The Estate of Diane Arbus, Collection Maja Hoffmann/LUMA Foundation
Diane Arbus: ‘Triplets in their bedroom, N.J.,’ 1963 // © The Estate of Diane Arbus, Collection Maja Hoffmann/LUMA Foundation
The unconventional installation of Arbus’ work at Gropius Bau involves the suspension of images along black, geometric metal structures in a labyrinthine fashion across each room. Walking through these structures, one can view images on either side, and peer through the negative space formed by these metal arrangements at other prints in the show. The images dance across the structures: some above eye level, and others just less than a meter from the ground. The drastic salon style hang of the works has an almost vertiginous effect, as it creates an incessant stream of movement that disorients those who walk through it. Being so close to other visitors in the space while engaging with the works gives the impression that one is being constantly surveilled. One might step up to a print hanging on one side of a pathway, only to feel the presence of someone opposite doing the very same thing. This formation has a somewhat subliminal effect, propelling our inner impulses to scrutinize and close in on images, while simultaneously pulling away out of fear of being perceived while doing so. Mirrors at different heights also punctuate the work, prompting visitors to consider their presence in the immersive installation even further.
Diane Arbus: ‘Konstellationen,’ installation view at Gropius Bau, 2025 // © Gropius Bau, photo by Rosa Merk. All art works © The Estate of Diane Arbus, Collection Maja Hoffmann/LUMA Foundation
Additionally, the installation choices made within this show mirror the confrontational nature of Arbus’ images and her exploratory and adventurous approach to producing work. This in part has to do with the fact that Arbus, in making portraits, looked closely at those who most people were afraid to address: disabled people, queers, addicts, sick people or anyone considered by normative society’s standards to be flawed or strange. By that same token, the element of stillness to her images necessitated a point of connection, in that her subjects were almost always looking into the lens of the camera or at Arbus herself. Many people at the time might have turned their gaze out of fear that they’ll recognize certain wounds within themselves, whether physical or psychological, and in turn, have to confront their own misgivings. Arbus, on the other hand, possessed the humanity to look at her subjects straight on and to meet them at eye level.
Diane Arbus: ‘Konstellationen,’ installation view at Gropius Bau, 2025 // © Gropius Bau, photo by Rosa Merk. All art works © The Estate of Diane Arbus, Collection Maja Hoffmann/LUMA Foundation
In the words of Arbus, “a picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you, the less you know.” This collection of images, while offering captivating detail and exactitude of subject matter, leaves one feeling complicit through the mere act of witnessing. The depth to these works speaks to the true nature of photography: a visual language able to capture a feeling that is ultimately inexpressible. The clarity yet simultaneous opacity of the images continues to sustain a paradox of the medium as well: it tells a truth and a lie, reveals and, in the same breath, withholds. By that logic, the subjects in Arbus’ portraits are not far from deities, in that, like religion, fundamental unknowability is what makes things sacred. It’s clear that, to Arbus, photography was a religion in its own right. Her particular ritualizing of it could be considered a strange sort of witchcraft—a worship of the eccentric and the mundane that takes us into the realm of the fantastic.
Exhibition Info
Gropius Bau
Diane Arbus: ‘Konstellationen’
Exhibition: Oct. 16, 2025–Jan. 18, 2026
berlinerfestspiele.de/…/diane-arbus
Niederkirchnerstraße 7, 10963 Berlin, click here for map
