Photographer Nan Goldin
Nan
Goldin
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Nan
Goldin
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Primarily, one has to mention that Nancy "Nan" Goldin is the famous American photographer and the winner of the French Legion of Honor. Besides, she became famous for her unique style of photography, which manifests itself in intimate portraits of her friends and acquaintances. It is important to notice that the themes of sex, drugs, passion, violence and parties are dominating in Nan’s pictures. She is a photographer, whose work caused, causes, and certainly will cause a very heated debate. Therefore, many people simply do not consider her works to be art photos calling them "dirty", while others praise Goldin as one of the most realistic contemporary photographers. Indeed, the life in photographs of Nan is quite prosaic, because the author is not afraid to show its unattractive sides.
Speaking of the photographer’s biography, Nancy Goldin was born in 1953 in Washington DC in the Jewish family (“Nan Goldin — Biography — Matthew Marks Gallery”). It is known that at the age of 12 years, Nan has experienced a great stress — her 18-year-old sister — Barbara Holly committed suicide. Consequently, She lived in foster care alternative and then enrolled in an alternative school called Satya Community School in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Besides, Nancy met two people there, who became her close friends and made a significant influence on her future life - photographer David Armstrong and teacher Suzanne Fletcher (“Nan Goldin — Biography — Matthew Marks Gallery”). At the age of 14, she ran away from home and the future life of Nan was full of all the manifestations of “Inside Out”. Her photographs of those times is a chronicle of her own life as the main heroes of her picture are addicts, drunken half-naked girls, masturbating young people with the appearance of scum, transvestites and the representatives of sexual minorities.
"Ivy
Wearing a Fall"
"David
at Grove"
"Kenny
Putting on Makeup"
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"Ivy
Wearing a Fall"
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"David
at Grove"
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"Kenny
Putting on Makeup"
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In 1973 the first solo exhibition of Nan Goldin was held in Boston. On such pictures as “David at Grove Street”,”Ivy Wearing a Fall” and “Kenny Putting on Makeup”, Goldin portrayed her friends in various stages of trans-transformation; however, one may see a thin line between femininity and masculinity on them. At that tome she entered School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / Tufts University and then moved to live in New York (“Nan Goldin — Biography — Matthew Marks Gallery”). In 1986 she published her book entitled “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency”, and this album had a tremendous success. It was a kind of “family album” and the picture of Nan with bruises under her eyes was situated in the center. By 1988, alcohol and drugs were so ingrained in the Nancy`s life that the photographer was forced to go to the clinic detoxification. Thus, pictures “My Bedroom at the Lodge”, “Self-portrait in Front of Clinic” and “Self-portrait with Milagros” revealed Goldin`s embarrassment of staying in the hospital (“Nan Goldin — Biography — Matthew Marks Gallery”). In 1990 Goldin presented a few projects to the public- “The Other Side”, “A Double Life”, “Emotions and Relations”, “Nan Goldin: Recent Photographs”, and others. Nan gradually moved away from “adult” themes and children appeared on her pictures. One has to say that there were a lot scandals regarding this issue as those pictures were accused of depicting children`s pornography.
In 1994, Nan Goldin and her best friend David Armstrong worked on a joint project — the book “A Double Life”. In 1995, an exhibition entitled the “Boston School” was held in the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. In 1996, the Whitney Museum of American Art hosted an exhibition of Nan Goldin retrospective. Besides, it was called “I'll Be Your Mirror”("Nan Goldin — Biography — Matthew Marks Gallery"). In 2006 an exhibition of Nan Goldin named “Chasing a Ghost” opened in New York City. Nancy introduced her first video installation “Sisters, Saints and Sibyls” on it. Furthermore, it was linked to the suicide of Goldin`s sister Barbara and focused on how the photographer coped with grief by photographing all around ("Nan Goldin — Biography — Matthew Marks Gallery"). Finally, in 2007, Goldin received one of the most prestigious awards from the world of photography – “Hasselblad”.
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“The
Ballad of Sexual Dependency”
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"A
Double Life"
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Nan Goldin operates in the manner of so-called “raw insider”, which means that her works is a very peculiar “family” photo album. In an interview with Nan Goldin, the photographer mentioned a lot about her attitude towards photography and how her works closely interrelated with her life (Mazur and Skirgajllo-Krajewska). One has to note that Nan Goldin`s photography depicts aesthetics of instant or snapshot photos. Therefore, her photos are characterized by the spontaneity. According to her words, if she wants to take a picture of something, she does it despite the conditions (O'Hagan). Besides, Goldin states that photos are fragments of life and because of this, the reproduction is eliminated (Mazur and Skirgajllo-Krajewska). As for the visual imperfection of her photographs, it is related to the fact that she always takes the pictures with the available light.
Nan’s entering the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, was marked by changes in the style of Nancy`s photographing. Prior to that, her pictures were only black and white shot with the help of available light source and sometimes with flash. However, shortly after admission to the School of Arts, Goldin began experimenting with color, which later became an essential attribute of her personal style in photography. Therefore, the usage of the flash during the creation of works is today known as “Goldin Sight”. She rarely works with natural light sources and due to this fact, Nan gently illuminates her models by the flash, which softens the bright colors . She reaches bright and deep colors by printing photos with 35mm film and using a photographic process called Cibachrome (Matwichuk). The main difference is that the ordinary photographs are printed with color negatives and Cibachrome photos with slides. This process allows the photographer to achieve an optimal color and contributes greatly to the brightness and sharpness of Goldin`s images (O'Hagan). Thus, she refused black and white photography, as black and white became for her an abstraction. An abstraction consequently means suspension, distance that is on the contrary to her deeply personalized approach to the photography.
Goldin believe that one portrait cannot reveal the identity of a person and is effective only in the series of portraits. What is more, it is a noteworthy feature of her exposure practices. As a result, the photographs are presented in a slide-show format at the exhibitions. Nan Goldin`s heroes are unique and, additionally, it has to be claimed that she often applies the real names of her models to the pictures - "Sandra in Front of the Mirror"or "Susan Sitting on the Bed". As it was already noted, the photographs illustrate very dramatic moments of the Goldin`s life of the photographer and her friends: rehab clinic, AIDS and violence. Nan Goldin depicts themes that are to some extent taboo in the society: the body, open sexuality, violence, drugs and death, but at that time, she avoids such principle as exoticization of those phenomena.
It is significant to point out that some critics accused Nan Goldin of making an emphasis on the glamorous sides of drug abuse and called her a pioneer, who popularized grunge that later became the subject of propaganda in youth magazines such as “The Face” and “ID”. In my opinion, critics have raised this issue not without a reason. Moreover, it is to said that due to the fact her works contain sexual subtext, Nan’s photographs were prohibited in some countries. For instance, one of the latest Goldin`s exhibitions in Brazil has undergone a strict censorship. The reason for that was the sexually explicit content of photographer intended for exposure. Thus, some images depicted sexual acts that took place in front of the children. Nan Goldin draws too much attention to taboo themes and even makes them look more realistic than it is necessary.
To add more, as it was written in dissertation of professor Thomas Skodbo, Nan Goldin photographs may be criticized because of the lack of “the intelligibility and self-evidence of the existing gender system” (Skodbo). What is more, her photographs deny the societal institutions such as: marriage, child rearing and traditional sexual practices, on the contrary, calling for raised female consciousness (Skodbo). Her works see a women as an oppressed marginalized group and the their body as the object of that oppression. Furthermore, some pictures that involve children may be considered to be pornographic. For example, one cannot but mention the photograph "Klara and Edda belly-dancing" (1999), which was even seized from the Baltic Art Center in UK.
To conclude, one should emphasize that Nan Goldin passed a long and difficult path towards the success. Besides, there are lot of point of view regarding her photographs – some critics state that she ingeniously depicts the realities of the current world, whereas the others claim that her works are disgusting and pornographic. However, everybody can vividly see that Nan Goldin`s art will not leave anyone indifferent.
Works Cited
Matwichuk, Laura. 'Slide Show, Monograph, Cibachrome: Nan Goldin's Colour Photographs In Three Forms'. (2009): n. pag. Print.
Mazur, Adam, and Paulina Skirgajllo-Krajewska. 'Interview With Nan Goldin'. Fototapeta.art.pl. N. p., 1998. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
'Nan Goldin - Biography - Matthew Marks Gallery'. Matthewmarks.com. N. p., 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
O'Hagan, Sean. 'Sunday Salon» Nan Goldin'. Utata.org. N. p., 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Skodbo,
Thomas. 'Nan Goldin: The Other Side – Photography And Gender
Identity'.
Hovedfagsoppgave in art history. IFIKK, University of
Oslo, Norway, 2007. Print.
