Viviane Maier: a meaningful nanny's passion

Feb 11th, 2014 Viviane Maier A meaningful nanny’s passion

by Natalia Lara Diaz-­‐Berrio _______________ In a bustling street (in what seems to be downtown), restaurants and pedestrians rushing around, a young in fashion man, holds rests of a food container; he is being atacked by two pigeons who are eating from his hands resting on his arms. Annoyed, he chews his last bite. A blond woman behind him, at a close distance stars at him, a sneaky smile on her lips. Viviane Maier is capturing the unprepared man, cought in three gazes: the woman, Maier and us.

*You could have been the lucky one Finding Viviane Maier documentary (by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel) was presented in the Montreal International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA), in November 2013. All tickets were sold in advance and dozens of people waited in the cold weather, to be able to see the movie, in vain. Being honest, the documentary, in cinematographic terms was not relevant not brilliantly done; but the story was intriguing. In the FIFA website it was described as: Viviane Maier!

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“This unknown, slightly disturbing and supremely talented artist [Viviane Maier] left behind a priceless legacy, while also carrying plenty of enigmas to the grave — enough to enthrall anyone who watches this gripping art thriller.”

Viviane Maier has become a story where people have freely enquired. Several articles and videos tell the facts, as they have been discovered or constructed. If the 27 years old Chicago collector John Maloof, would not have found Maier’s negatives in a storage auction in 2007, you could have been the lucky one. Maloof realized he was sitting in a gold mine and began to diffuse and sell Maier’s work. Since then, exhibitions have been organized in the U.S., Britain, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and France. But, not a single art institution has accepted to show her work. In this article, the anecdotal content is not considered as the relevant aspect of Maier’s life and work. Observation and imagination is more interesting than numbers.

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*Facts don’t really matter If the way in which Maier was discovered is not the main point, you might be surprised that Maier’s life in objective or quantitative terms was not in itself outstanding. She was born in 1926, in New York; she was French by mother and American by birth. She worked as a nanny in different homes in Chicago. She died lonely and poor in 2009, a couple of months before gaining recognition. Well to be fair… she did do something quite special for the time; she travelled by herself, in 1959 and 1960, taking photographs in Bangkok, Beijing, Egypt and Italy. We might wonder who saw her thousands of photographs taken during that period. No one, not even her, since hundreds of rolls were found by Maloof undeveloped.

Maier didn’t only take photographs during her trips; she took more than 100 000 photographs during all her life, besides 8 mm iilms and audio recordings. It is worth mentioning that she did not do digital photography, where it is relatively easy to take thousands of photos.

She paid with her wage, as a nanny, thousands of rolls. Why would someone take so many photographs and not ever show them? *What photography meant for her Is not a photograph, in the end, made to be seen? Any regular photographer is expecting, soon or later, to show his or her work. Some of them might be expecting money, fame, sex and glory. Others, more humble, maybe wish feedback and modest recognition. Maier did not show her work at any point. And she did not leave instructions with her work after her death. Many artists were recognized after their death (to mention a couple: Vincent Van

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Gogh and Frida Kahlo). But, even if these artists did not live in fame they frequented peer, they had feedback from them or from their family (as Theo to Vincent), Maier didn not.

All it is known about Maier and her relationship with contemporary photography is that she had books about photography and she always read and kept newspapers. So, she was aware to a certain degree of what was going on in art. But she did not study photography nor did she go to university. She was simply an autodidact photographer. Being a nanny was the best choice she could have made to be free enough to take photos, or that is what she thought. As the once children she took care of, told in the documentary, she took them in to all kind of places: poor neighborhoods, factories, bridges. One iive years old was even taken to see animals die in a slaughterhouse.

A regular week day in Maier’s life could have been like this: She would get up early, at 6:15, to prepare breakfast for the family. Parents would leave for work and children for school. Lilly, the youngest one could not walk yet; so, after washing dishes and making beds, she would put her in a red stroller and go out. With a long coat (at that period of year days were chilly) she would wonder around in downtown Chicago. With her camera Rolleiilex she would capture all the attractive elements and people. After a few hours Lilly would start to cry, Maier would look at her watch and realize she has to pick up Bobby and Fred from school and go back home to prepare lunch and do homework.

But Maier, as it may seem, did not love kids, as a young man would confess in the documentary. One day, a boy she was responsible for, had an accident in his bike. People and a policeman gather around to help him and Maier at a distance was fascinating taking photographs. Her real and only passion in life was photography.

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Rolleiilex camera permitted Maier to take photos from a lower angle because the focusing magniiier, the focusing hood and the window for diaphragm shutter settings can be seen and adjust form above. Maier could hold her camera at the chest level, hanging from her neck and looking through the viewer bellow. Then, she would capture with magniiicence the person in front of her, who would be staring at her and not at the camera. That particular angle given by the nature of the camera, assigned to her subjects a monumentality and imminent presence which is captivating. She took photographs of every person which had something unique and particular. Dorothea Lange, Helen Levitt, Henri Cartier-­‐Bresson, Robert Capa, Diane Arbus’ subjects could have been Maier’s. Those were difiicult decades in the United-­‐Sates, poverty, immigration, racism, war… But for a photographer it was a fertile place to work.

It is imaginable she got an enormous pleasure of transiting life accompanied by her camera, always with attentive eyes to catch any light, shadow, gaze, any magic. But, at the end of the roll, who was she taking the photos for? *Then, maybe she was creating for you and your grandchildren If photography is always about light, about a record, it is also about a gaze. Maier was Viviane Maier

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recording her reality for someone, wanted it or not. It is clear it was not for her contemporaries. Maybe she considered they were not able to understand what she captured or it would not be relevant for them. It can be imagined she took the photos for us, for our kids, for our grandchildren. She knew her photographs were good, intense, accurate, strong and independent. As Barthes already stated, in “Death of the author” in 1967: "To give a text an Author and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it is to impose a limit on that text." Maier’s photographs are iinding their way through the History of photography after she is gone. She once said, about death, in an intimate and personal audio recording: “I suppose nothing is meant to last forever. We have to make room for other people, it is a wheel. You get on you have to go to the end. And then somebody has the same opportunity to go to the end and so on.” She got to the end, in silence and peace, while her photographs will still be running around.

When Maloof found the treasure, he offered it to the MOMA but it was rejected, so he went on with the private sector. Many galleries showed her work; Jeffrey Goldstein, a Chicago art collector bought part of her negatives; a BBC documentary was made and two books were published (Vivian Maier: Street photographer and Vivian Maier: Self-­ portraits). Nonetheless, art institutions have not shown interest in her work. They might want to avoid the risk of giving her recognition, it might not be safe for their business. Indeed, she was not educated, she was not part of artists’ movements, she was not a photographers’ friend, she was just a nanny and some might even whisper: “and she is a woman”. Art institutions have the mandate of showing culture and art, but instead they seem worried about their reputation, their iinances and what art institutions next door are doing and saying about them. Maloof might not be happy because he cannot make so much money, Maier would not care probably, but we, as viewers, we can be critical about their disdain.

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It is not because a photographer is not in an art collection, or did not have connections and had a regular job that he or she cannot have an astonishing work of art. Observing Maier’s shots is enough to understand the dimension of her photos, at least for thousands of people today. Let’s show that we deserve to take care of that legacy and do not reject art that do not respect standards, norms and stereotypes; as institutions with big letters have neglected artists and will do it again. Amen.

Viviane Maier

Natalia Lara Diaz-­‐Berrio