Chronicler of the Unseen: Vivian Maier retrospective to open at Fotografiska Tallinn

This week, Fotografiska Tallinn opens its major exhibition of the season, Vivian Maier: Unseen Work, arriving in the Baltic and Nordic region for the first time following successful runs at Fotografiska New York and Shanghai. The French-American photographer Vivian Maier remained unknown during her lifetime, but the chance discovery of her photographic archive brought her extraordinary talent to the world and posthumously established her among the great names of 20th-century photography.

Vivian Maier’s (1926–2009) story is one of the most remarkable in the history of photography. During nearly 40 years working as a nanny, she walked the streets of New York and Chicago with a camera around her neck, often accompanied by the children in her care. At the height of the American Dream, Maier belonged to an invisible working class and remained a quiet witness to the world around her. Where others saw ordinary daily life, Maier saw an endless source of images, at times through a child’s eyes: colourful characters, fleeting encounters, strange coincidences and the tragicomic moments of everyday life. A quiet observer, she explored and documented post-war America from the 1950s to the late 1980s with an extraordinary instinct, creating a unique visual portrait of the era, with life itself in the leading role.

Maier documented in detail the urban fabric of North America’s metropolises and the sociopolitical changes taking place around her, but she was equally drawn to the margins of everyday life: people who had stepped out of the constant flow of the streets and remained at its edges, waiting, watching or simply dozing. Her visual language brings together humanist photography and the American street photography tradition, interspersed with striking self-portraits in which Maier herself occasionally enters the frame. Colour and film became part of her later work – she experimented with movement and kinetic sequences, bringing elements of cinematic language into her photographic work while also experimenting with moving images.

Maier’s vast archive, comprising more than 120,000 negatives as well as her own documentary films and audio recordings, only came to light after her death. Its chance discovery revealed both the extraordinary scale of her work and the strength of her talent. The unknown nanny became an international phenomenon posthumously, and Maier is now regarded as one of the most important street photographers of the 20th century, alongside major figures such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus and Robert Frank.

The remarkable discovery of Maier’s body of work is also the subject of the acclaimed documentary Finding Vivian Maier (2013), which traces the chance discovery of her negatives and offers a glimpse into the photographer’s enigmatic character, pieced together largely through speculation and from the perspectives of those around her.

“Vivian Maier’s story is extraordinary, but what matters even more is how powerfully her photographs speak even without knowing that story,” says Maarja Loorents, Head of Exhibitions and Co-Founder of Fotografiska Tallinn. “The exhibition offers an excellent overview of the work of one of the most gifted street photographers of the last century, from her iconic images of the streets of Chicago and New York to her more abstract work and colour photography.” Loorents adds that perhaps the greatest value of Maier’s work today lies precisely in its humanity: “The world around us is full of stories, if only we take the time to notice them.”

The exhibition is a co-production between the international art platform diChroma photography and Fotografiska, in collaboration with the John Maloof Collection, Chicago, and Howard Greenberg Gallery, NY. It is curated by Anne Morin, Director of diChroma photography and one of the leading researchers and advocates of Vivian Maier’s legacy. The curator responsible for the exhibition at Fotografiska Tallinn is Maarja Loorents.

The exhibition’s opening weekend begins on Friday with a focus on the theatre of everyday life – Maier’s world, where everyone unknowingly plays a part and can become the main character, even for a fraction of a second. At the opening event on 18 September at 20:00, a gallery of characters will come to life, embodied by actors Eliis-Maria Koit, Laura Kukk, Hardi Möller and Taavi Tõnisson. During the evening, curator Anne Morin will also lead a tour of the exhibition. From Saturday, 19 September, the exhibition settles into Fotografiska’s regular opening hours, and Anne Morin will lead a separate curator’s tour in English at 13:00.

Vivian Maier’s world will remain open at Fotografiska Tallinn until 17 January. The exhibition is supported by Women In Motion, founded by the Kering Group in 2015 to highlight inequalities in the field of culture and the arts and to change perceptions.