A Secret Life

Finding Vivian Maier

Piecing together Vivian Maier’s life can easily evoke Churchill’s famous quote about the vast land of Tsars and commissars that lay to the east. A person who fit the stereotypical European sensibilities of an independent liberated woman, accent and all, yet born in New York City. Someone who was intensely guarded and private, Vivian could be counted on to feistily preach her own very liberal worldview to anyone who cared to listen, or didn’t. Decidedly unmaterialistic, Vivian would come to amass a group of storage lockers stuffed to the brim with found items, art books, newspaper clippings, home films, as well as political tchotchkes and knick-knacks. The story of this nanny who has now wowed the world with her photography, and who incidentally recorded some of the most interesting marvels and peculiarities of Urban America in the second half of the twentieth century is seemingly beyond belief.

In her leisure Vivian would shoot photos that she jealously hid from the eyes of others. Taking snapshots into the late 1990′s, Maier would leave behind a body of work comprising over 100,000 negatives. Additionally Vivian’s passion for documenting extended to a series of homemade documentary films and audio recordings.

It was only after her death at the age of 83, that her photographic work was discovered by the realtor John Maloof. He was looking for historic photos of a neighbourhood in Chicago and came across a lot of undeveloped films and negatives at an auction. Only when he was developing them did he realise the great talent he was dealing with. The discovery of Maier’s work came as a bombshell.

This intriguing documentary shuttles from New York to France to Chicago as it traces the life story of the late Vivian Maier, a career nanny whose previously unknown cache of 100,000 photographs has earned her a posthumous reputation as one of America’s most accomplished and insightful street photographers.

Vivian Maier – The discovery of a photographer

exhibition – Jun. 27, 2014 – Aug. 17, 2014

St. Peter’s Abbey
Sint-Pietersplein 9
Ghent, 9000
Belgium

Vivian Maier