William Eggleston and Diane Arbus present new and rare photographs at Cheim & Read in New York

Cheim & Read in New York City hosted concurrent exhibitions from January 7 to February 13, featuring photographs by William Eggleston and Diane Arbus. Eggleston's works, created around the early 2000s, extended his practice beyond the American South to international settings like Mexico, capturing mundane details with vibrant color and fragmented perspectives. His piece Untitled (Lamplighter Kitchen, Memphis) from 2000 reveals a squalid kitchen with muted, garish tones, hinting at underlying darkness. Arbus's rarely-seen photographs applied her fascination with the freakish to vacant landscapes, producing unsettling, surreal images such as Christ in a lobby, NYC (1966) and An empty movie theater, NYC (1971). Both artists were introduced by John Szarkowski, former director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, who included them in the 1967 exhibition New Document alongside Garry Winogrand and Lee Friedlander. They rebelled against traditional gelatin silver prints, embracing a documentary style to bridge art and life. Susan Sontag's 1977 commentary in On Photography noted Arbus's view of continuous self-revelation, which influenced the slow unraveling of subjects in her Cheim & Read show. The exhibitions highlighted the artists' shared belief that any subject could be compelling when captured effectively, with Eggleston's focus on form and Arbus's exploration of loneliness in landscapes.