Nan Goldin
I’m starting a new category in this blog for photographers that I think are worth checking out. I’ll start off with photographers that have been around awhile and I’ll write a few paragraphs, show a few pics and offer additional links to whet your photographic appetites. Let’s start off with Nan Goldin.
Nan Goldin is a contemporary American photographer born in 1953 currently living in NYC, USA and I’ve been following her work for a over 2 decades. If I were forced to describe her work I’d write that Goldin is a ‘moment-photojournalist’. She both captures and creates intimate moments of the people in her life and it’s hard not to have an opinion about her photography. If you have never heard of her, research her two most famous photo books (The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, Aperture, 1986 and The Devil’s Playground Phaidon 2003) in order to form your own impressions. One thing you will notice pretty quickly is that a lot of the work breaks the rules. A lot of images are out of focus. A lot of the images are not safe for work.
What I really like about Goldin’s work are the moods she creates in her images. She realized early on that like life itself, ’ life’s moments’ as captured through the lens don’t always need to be sharp to be powerful. The moments of life that Goldin captures, like life itself are often imperfect.
Greer and Robert on the bed, NYC 1982 © Nan Goldin
Nan and Brian in bed, NYC, 1983 © Nan Goldin
Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a taxi, NYC 1991 — © Nan Goldin
Bruno smoking a joint (valerie’s legs) Paris 2001 © Nan Goldin
Swan-like embrace, Paris 2010 © Nan Goldin
Additional Nan Goldin resources and links:
Wikipedia - Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin interviewed by Adam Mazur and Paulina Skirgajllo-Krajewska
Goldin’s Years By Lisa Liebmann, originally published in ArtForum, October, 2002
Nan Goldin: ‘I wanted to get high from a really early age’ — Interview with Sean O’Hagan — 2014
