Another Arbus portrait, by Lee Friedlander

It can be hard to find good photography exhibits in Berlin, because the major photography museum in town is controlled by the Helmut Newton Foundation and tends to feature work by him and his ilk. (By my lights, one Helmut Newton photo per exhibition is one too many.) Luckily, after attending the usual nearly useless show there, I stumbled upon a huge and very good Lee Friedlander retrospective at the nearby Amerika Haus. 

I am a longtime Friedlander fan, but I still had no idea of the range of his work. It’s been hard to narrow the choices of what to show you to three. The main one is of course Diane Arbus, in a lovely double portrait with her younger daughter, Amy. The two extras are 1) an example of his shots taken from cars, which I’ve sometimes cited in my past blips, and 2) a photo from 1970s New York that strikes me as a nice encapsulation of time and place.