Photographer Arne Svenson, much to the irritation of his neighbors—poetic license not being what it once was—took photographs of them from across the way, through their windows, and then made a gallery show of it. This of course raises all kinds of privacy questions (that’s the art at work, one argument might go), but he likens himself to a bird-watcher:
“[My subjects] are performing behind a transparent scrim on a stage of their own creation with the curtain raised high. ‘The Neighbors’ don’t know they are being photographed; I carefully shoot from the shadows of my home into theirs.”
The neighbors are “livid,” according to one report, for any number of reasons; it does not appear that they are scheduled to receive a cut from the proceeds, as much as $7500 per photograph (at Julie Saul Gallery).