The critical reputation of an artist can be shaped for a generation by a major retrospective of their work. When large numbers of works are exhibited, a reputation can be enhanced or diminished. In the case of Diane Arbus: Constellation (at the Park Avenue Armory), I fear the overall impact might be a damaging one.

Part of the problem, and this is obviously nothing to do with the artist, is that Constellation is one of the worst staged shows I have ever seen. More than 400 pictures are displayed entirely randomly and largely without captions. Some are hung so high on the wall that only exceptionally tall visitors could see them properly, while others are near the floor. It is, let’s be clear, a complete mess. Arbus deserves better than this amateurish staging.

The photographs themselves are surprisingly uneven. The best ones are brilliant. Unsettling portraits of what Arbus called “freaks” or ordinary people captured on a street or in a park. These are often arresting and disturbing, and reflect Arbus’s genius for capturing with humanity, generosity, and good humor the enormous diversity of life as it’s lived. Children playing in the park, society hostesses in their salons, and performers in the “freak shows” that were still a feature of New York in the 1960s – all are caught in a single moment with tenderness and without judgement. By way of contrast, her few portraits of well-known people (Herbert von Karajan or James Brown, for example), are less successful, though I loved her picture of Marianne Moore with W.H. Auden.

Some of Arbus’s interests are explored here too extensively. There are, for example, dozens of pictures of people wearing masks of various kinds. The effect overall is somehow to emphasize the narrowness of her artistic vision, not its breadth. A wiser curator would have selected fewer pictures. So, in summary, a great talent not well served by the show’s curator, but Constellation is worth seeing.