Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

BOOKS Rewriting Vivian Maier: Book uncovers more on mystery photographer
by Liz Baudler
2017-11-01

This article shared 1568 times since Wed Nov 1, 2017
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


Vivian Maier's photographs elevated a woman thought merely to be a reclusive former suburban nanny into an international phenomenon. Her life was presented as a mystery; her work, miraculous. None of this impressed Northwestern University photography professor Pamela Bannos when she took her class to see the first show of Maier's work at the Chicago Cultural Center in 2011.

"It wasn't her work that stood out, it was the way her life was being presented in display cases," Bannos remembered. "This little rubber-banded bundle was on display like an artifact, and the first thing that I thought of was how weird it was that this woman who nobody knew anything about was on such display amidst her photographs."

Bannos attributes the longstanding impression of Maier the mystery woman to her main collector, John Maloof, who in addition to several other people, purchased the contents of Maier's storage locker in 2007, and who set the narrative of his muse with his 2011 documentary, Finding Vivian Maier.

"His documentary about her is essentially a documentary about him trying to find her," Bannos said. "He very selectively was giving and withholding information about her, stating instead that he had some peculiar details about her life. Everyone had to wait until the book came out, and then until the movie came out, and so the strategy of keeping her a mystery—and then she actually remains a mystery—what might reveal her intentions never become exposed."

It's become clear to Bannos over the years that not only does Maloof's official Vivian Maier website perpetuate several inaccuracies about the photographer, but that the woman herself has been removed from her own story.

"She and her story have been defined by the men who acquired her stuff," Bannos said. "And she had no say in the way that she's been defined or her photographs have been characterized or produced or displayed and published and sold."

Bannos' Vivian Maier: A Photographer's Life and Afterlife is an exhaustively researched biography of a woman who, perhaps because of a combination of life circumstance and personality, could be genuinely hard to research. Bannos traveled to New York and around Chicago to the scenes of many of Maier's photos, and even followed Maier's footsteps to her birthplace in France. Her genealogical research helped confirm the death of Maier's brother, Karl, to Cook County, which aided a ruling on the photographer's estate.

Bannos' biggest undertaking was the two years she studied over 20,000 of Maier's prints and negatives, learning how the photographer worked through analyzing the sequence of shots and technical aspects of her work. Through that, she was able to negate Maloof's assertion that Maier jumped from a private box camera to a more sophisticated Rolliflex.

"The greatest myth is that she was a nanny with a hobby of photography," Bannos explained. "What I've tried to do is flip that and portray her as a serious photographer whose occupation as being a nanny gave her the freedom to not have to worry about where she was living and where her next meal was coming from, and still had the independence to go out and be the photographer that I think she saw herself as."

Bannos sees Maier as similar to other woman photographers of her time period. She discovered that Maier had, in the 1950s, assembled a portfolio of work that she might have used to apply for jobs in New York.

"She's 25 years old when she's doing that," Bannos explained. "People are like, why didn't she share her photographs? And the people who are saying that knew her when she was 60 or 70 years old, knew a different person than the hopeful 25-year-old in New York who might have been putting a portfolio together for whatever reason."

A third of Maier's known work was not developed, which Bannos suspects occurred because the photographer became more transient in later years. Yet Maier kept taking pictures, often just of movies she was watching in theaters and her important documents. Bannos likens Maier to a prototype of today's smartphone photographer.

"She would just have 12,000 pictures on her Instagram, but I don't know that she would have shared them," Bannos said. "It was the action of photographing that I think she was the most taken with."

Bannos finds the development of work that Maier herself did not see invasive, and she finds it equally irresponsible to speculate questions of Maier's personality or sexuality. She's most comfortable stating facts about Maier, who wore men's clothing and could be considered a hoarder.

"The appropriation of the way we want to see her if we want her to be one of us becomes more about us than about her," said Bannos, a longtime member of the LGBTQ community. "Wishful thinking that she's like us because we hold her up, and if we don't, we don't want her to be like us. I think it's fascinating how people talk about her and what they do embrace about her in this way."

She views Maier's secretiveness as an outcropping of both her family situation—Maier was an illegitimate child and her brother was mentally ill—and her employment.

"The secrets she might have wanted to keep have to do with the shame that's associated with those things, and ultimately I just don't think she wanted anybody to know her business," Bannos said. "They're in power, they're her employers. She did what she could to maintain her own autonomy within their homes."

Overall, Bannos sees the handling of Maier's legacy as rife with ethical dilemmas, but unlike the men who between them own Maier's lifework, she's taking a different approach.

"I don't have that kind of vested stake in her legacy that I'm going to make more money because I'm going to call her a certain thing," Bannos said. "I just wanted to have her put back in her story."

Vivian Maier, A Photographer's Life and Afterlife, by Pamela Bannos, Hardcover, University of Chicago. See vivianmaierproject.com/ .

Pamela Bannos is an artist and researcher who utilizes methods that highlight the forgotten and overlooked, exploring the links between visual representation, urban space, history, and collective memory. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including in solo exhibitions at the Photographers' Gallery in London, England, and the Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York. Her research projects include an investigation of Chicago's Lincoln Park and the grounds of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Bannos has taught photography in Northwestern University's Department of Art Theory and Practice since 1993.


This article shared 1568 times since Wed Nov 1, 2017
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

Kara Swisher talks truth, power in tech at Chicago Humanities event
2024-03-25
Lesbian author, award-winning journalist and podcast host Kara Swisher spoke about truth and power in the tech industry through the lens of her most recent book, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, March 21 at First ...


Gay News

THEATER Chicago's City Lit has anxiety on tap with 'Two Hours in a Bar'
2024-03-21
Two Hours in a Bar Waiting for Tina Meyer by Kristine Thatcher with material by Larry Shue Text Me by Kingsley Day (Book, Music and Lyrics). At: City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.. Tickets: ...


Gay News

RuPaul finds 'Hidden Meanings' in new memoir
2024-03-18
RuPaul Andre Charles made a rare Chicago appearance for a book tour on March 12 at The Vic Theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield Ave. Presented by National Public Radio station WBEZ 91.5 FM, the talk coincided with ...


Gay News

Almost 8% of U.S. residents identify as LGBTQ+
2024-03-16
The proportion of U.S. adults identifying as LGBTQ+ continues to increase. LGBTQ+ identification in the U.S. continues to grow, with 7.6% of U.S. adults now identifying as LGBTQ+, according to the newest Gallup poll results that ...


Gay News

Women's History Month doesn't do enough to lift up Black lesbians
2024-03-12
Fifty years ago, in 1974, the Combahee River Collective (CRC) was founded in Boston by several lesbian and feminist women of African descent. As a sisterhood, they understood that their acts of protest were shouldered by ...


Gay News

No 'explanations' needed: Affinity remains a haven for Chicago's Black queer community
2024-03-12
Back in 2007, Anna DeShawn came out while she was studying for her undergraduate degree. At around the same time, she searched online for "Black lesbians in Chicago." Her search led her to Affinity Community Services, ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Altercation, mpox research, Univ. of Fla., George Santos, tech battle
2024-03-08
Video footage uploaded to Facebook showed an altercation between a state trooper and two prominent Philadelphia LGBTQ+ leaders, the Washington Blade reported, republishing an article from Philadelphia Gay News. Celena ...


Gay News

Affinity Community Services' Latonya Maley announces departure
2024-03-06
Latonya Maley, executive director of Affinity Community Services, announced March 6 that she would be stepping down from her post. The announcement came from a statement with Affinity board members. Maley said that, "It has been ...


Gay News

LPAC celebrates historic wins for LGBTQ+ candidates in Super Tuesday primaries
2024-03-06
From a press release: Washington, DC—Today, LPAC,the nation's leading organization dedicated to electing LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary candidates to public office, proudly announces the outstanding victories of 67% of endorsed candidates ...


Gay News

THEATER 'R & J' puts a female, queer spin on Shakespeare
2024-03-05
Romeo and Juliet is the theatrical gift that keeps on giving. It's been reworked for the masses numerous times, whether in direct adaptations or musicals such as West Side Story. Shakespeare's plotline points have even inspired ...


Gay News

Without compromise: Holly Baggett explores lives of iconoclasts Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap
2024-03-04
Jane Heap (1883-1964) and Margaret Anderson (1886-1973), each of them a native Midwesterner, woman of letters and iconoclast, had a profound influence on literary culture in both America and Europe in the early 20th Century. Heap ...


Gay News

There she goes again: Author Alison Cochrun discusses writing journey
2024-02-27
By Carrie Maxwell When Alison Cochrun began writing her first queer romance novel in 2019, she had no idea it would change the course of her entire life. Cochrun, who spent 11 years as a high ...


Gay News

Brittney Griner's jersey retired at Baylor University
2024-02-20
On Feb. 18, Baylor University retired Brittney Griner's #42 jersey. Griner—a two-time AP national player of the year, two-time Olympic gold medalist and the NCAA women's career blocks leader (with 748)—attended a Bears home game ...


Gay News

Theater Review: Billy Elliot, The Musical
2024-02-19
Book and Lyrics: Lee Hall; Music: Elton John. At: Paramount Theatre, 23 E. Galena Blvd., Aurora Tickets: 630-896-6666 or Paramountaurora.com; $28-$79. Runs through March 24 Billy Elliot: The Musical may nearly be two decades old, but ...


Gay News

Second Glance Productions hosts LGBTQupid Soiree
2024-02-16
In celebration of Valentine's Day, Chicago based film and media production company Second Glance hosted The LBGTQupid Soiree. The event, which was focused on spinning attitudes on this particular day, was presented at The iO ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.