Photographer
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.
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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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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.
