Nan Goldin Overview

"I always thought that if I managed to photograph somebody often enough, I could never lose them. My photographs are, however, the proof of how much I have lost." When Nan Goldin began photographing drug addicts, poets, musicians, and the homosexual... [more]

"I always thought that if I managed to photograph somebody often enough, I could never lose them. My photographs are, however, the proof of how much I have lost." When Nan Goldin began photographing drug addicts, poets, musicians, and the homosexual underground, she had no idea how much she was to lose. It was New York in the '70s and AIDS had only begun to manifest itself. Digging herself firmly into the Lower East Side scene, Goldin began recording the downward spiral of this American subculture. In a work such as the "Portfolio of Cookie Mueller," Goldin follows her friend (and star of several John Waters' films) from their first meeting through her brutal bout with AIDS. In this way, Goldin is a documentarian, not only of an era, but of individual lives. "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" spans the course of 16 years, following the struggles of many "protagonists." We see the same faces over and over, shooting up, stroking a lover, or slipping into drag. What results is a novelistic portrait of a string of characters who assume a myriad faces. Working mainly in color, Goldin's photos are at once brutally honest, yet intensely tender. She once said that her work "derives from the snapshot. It is the form of photography that most closely stands for love." Through her portraits, Goldin also brings to the foreground a heretofore marginalized component of society. It is a portrait of a group struggling to find a voice before AIDS came to the fore of international consciousness. Scrutinizing social taboos, exploring the divisions between the sexes, Goldin has created a photographic record of a generation. [show less]