In 1972, Diane Arbus made history as the first photographer to have her work featured in the Venice Biennale, one of the most prestigious international art exhibitions. Her haunting, black-and-white portraits were described as “extremely powerful and very strange,” captivating audiences and making her the “overwhelming sensation of the American Pavilion.” This landmark moment not only cemented Arbus’s posthumous reputation as one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, but also signaled a significant shift in the art world—photography was no longer seen solely as documentation; it had earned its place as a medium of profound psychological and emotional expression.

The Venice Biennale, founded in 1895, has long been a crucible for avant-garde and groundbreaking work across art, architecture, film, music, and theater. Arbus’s inclusion in the Biennale marked a pivotal moment in the perception of photography, elevating it to the status of fine art. Her images, raw and unflinching, forced viewers to confront their assumptions about identity, difference, and what it means to be seen.

Behind this bold, uncompromising work was an artist shaped by a complex relationship with the world around her. Born Diane Nemerov in 1923 to a wealthy New York family, she grew up surrounded by the glamour of fashion and consumerism. Though she initially worked alongside her husband Allan Arbus as a successful fashion photographer for magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, Diane quickly grew disillusioned with the superficiality of that world. Seeking a deeper truth, she enrolled in classes with the influential photographer Lisette Model in the late 1950s, a turning point that helped her develop the distinct visual language that would define her work.

Arbus’s lens gravitated toward those who lived on the margins of society—carnival performers, transgender individuals, people with disabilities, nudists, and others often rendered invisible by mainstream culture. Her portraits, often taken with a square-format camera and illuminated by stark flash, confronted viewers with a directness that was both intimate and unsettling. She believed that the so-called “freaks” she photographed were not objects of curiosity but rather people with a clarity and authenticity absent from much of the world around her. In her words, “Most people go through life dreading they’ll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They’ve already passed their test in life. They’re aristocrats.”

Arbus was not interested in idealizing her subjects—she was drawn to their truth, however uncomfortable. Her work challenges the viewer to acknowledge complexity in others and, in doing so, to question their own biases and perceptions. “A photograph is a secret about a secret,” she once said. “The more it tells you the less you know.” That paradox lies at the heart of her images, which remain as provocative and compelling today as they were in 1972.

Though Diane Arbus died by suicide in 1971, her presence at the Venice Biennale the following year was a powerful affirmation of her artistic vision. It marked not only her own legacy but a larger cultural moment—one in which photography stepped fully into the realm of fine art, and the voices of the marginalized were brought, unapologetically, into the center of the frame.