CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/4/2017

Max Kozloff on John Szarkowski's New Documents 1967

In a 1967 review of MoMA photography curator John Szarkowski's seminal New Documents show—featuring the work of Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand—Max Kozloff wrote, "What these photographers have in common is a complete loss of faith in the mass media as vehicle, or even market for their work. Newsiness, from the journalistic point of view, and 'stories,' from the literary one, in any event, do not interest them. They have long since agreed with the innocent message of Philip Roth in his famous article, 'Writing American Fiction,' in which he despairs of the power of current fiction to surpass the incredibility of the American scene itself, a scene that had elected Eisenhower as its President. Now we have movie stars and racist restaurant owners for governors, and the novelists can't possibly invoke the look of an atmosphere that could ever have permitted them." Words that have resonance even today. "World's Fair" (1964), by Garry Winogrand, is reproduced from Arbus Friedlander Winogrand: New Documents, 1967, launching tonight at the Strand.