NAN GOLDIN

Nan Goldin (born September 12, 1953) is a New York-based photographer known for her works exploring subcultures within her community. Goldin was first introduced to photography at the age of fifteen by a teacher who passed out Polaroid cameras to students at the progressive Satya Community School in Boston. Her projects showcase images depicting topics such as sexuality, intimacy, drug abuse and the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s, heavily influenced by her childhood and upbringing where at age 11 Goldin’s sister died by suicide, one of the first events in her life that would later lead her to photography. After being introduced to photography by a teacher, Goldin held her first solo show in 1973, composed of a collection of images she had taken of Boston’s gay and drag community whilst embarking on a photographic journey throughout the city. The immediate connection she felt to capturing a community led her to begin her first and arguably most recognized work, The Ballad Of Sexual Dependency in 1974.

When Goldin was 18 in 1974, she began to study art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. There she would begin taking photographs and documenting her life for what would turn out to be The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, which is arguably her most recognized work. It is a documentary-style photobook composed of over 700 images that serves as a personal narrative to Goldin, formed out of the artists’ experience around New York, Boston, Berlin and elsewhere. The book is dedicated to Goldin’s friends, many of which passed away after suffering from complications as a result of AIDS. The book liberates the self-expression of Goldin and her friends, captured in intimate moments of highs and lows. “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is the diary I let people read,” Goldin wrote. “The diary is my form of control over my life. It allows me to obsessively record every detail. It enables me to remember.” Her project was revealed in a diaristic narrative sequence of often unfocused but strongly coloured transparencies arranged as a slide show. Accompanied by a musical score featuring rock, blues, reggae and so on. The presentation was initially shown in nightclubs and eventually in galleries. Goldin continued to work on this project throughout the 1980s, and it was reproduced in 1986 in photobook form.

Continuing to photograph drag queens in the 1990s, she produced and later published two books composed of images she’d taken of her drag queen friends over the years – The Other Side, 1972-1993, titled after a club she used to frequent, and The Family of Nan, 1990–92, in which she documented her friends’ AIDS-related deaths. Goldin started taking photographs of drag queens in 1972 and soon developed an obsession with them, as she has described: “I never saw them as men dressing up as women, but as something entirely different – a third gender that made more sense than either of the other two.” Her photographs became a form of homage. An example is the image above depicting Goldin and her friends laughing and enjoying a picnic. This candid shows the perspective Goldin aimed to embody in her work as she tried to defy negative stereotypes surrounding sexuality and drag. The image is one of many of her very personal declaration of love and gratitude to these drag queens, who showed her a way out of the captivity of gender standards and stereotypes in identity. As she put it: “The pictures in this book are not of people suffering gender dysphoria but rather expressing gender euphoria…. The people in these pictures are truly revolutionary; they are the real winners in the battle of the sexes because they have stepped out of the ring”.

Although Goldin’s most famous works are those of her friends, she often turned the camera on herself, producing a collection of intimate images depicting herself at different stages throughout her life, from her chaotic 70’s lifestyle to her eventual rehabilitation and recovery in the late 80’s and beyond. These self-portraits show the impact of her hedonistic lifestyle, whether through portraits capturing moments of peace and intimacy, or through images showing the darker side of hedonism, showcasing addiction, self-destruction and violence. These photographs have a very personal feel to them and embody the insider diaristic narrative that Goldin pushed to convey in her work to produce hazy, gritty images enhanced by deep shadows, a blurred lens and vibrant lighting.

After the publication of The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, Goldin found herself struggling with addiction, and checked herself into a rehabilitation centre in the late 80’s. After a few years of hiatus from photography, Goldin returned in 1994 with the release of Tokyo Love, a photobook she worked on in collaboration with Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. In 1992, the editors of the Japanese Magazine Deja-Vu invited Goldin to Tokyo to meet Nobuyoshi Araki, a photographer hailed for his intimate, diaristic photographic style that was often compared to Goldins. During the creation of the book, Goldin found herself immersed in the new, unfamiliar subculture of Tokyo, and went on to document the lifestyle of adolescents in Japan, producing powerful images showing the expression of a subculture through documented the lifestyle of adolescents in Japan through colourful, culture-filled urban photographs depicting, in Araki’s words, the ‘joys of life’.

IMAGE ANALYSIS

This image is one of many taken from The Ballad of Sexual Dependency that portrays the subject through the insider narrative. The subject in this photo in Goldin herself, looking at her reflection in a bathroom mirror. The image is staged, positioning Goldin in the centre of the photograph to highlight her as the solo viewpoint and draw the viewers eye – this is done so through colour contrast between the deep blue of the bathroom tiles and illumination of Goldins face by the artificial lighting from the flash of the camera, which is reflected onto the walls tiles. Elements of natural lighting seep into the photograph and highlight blur within the image caused by low shutter speed. The photograph at first doesn’t let onto Goldins background and character, but upon further inspection could reflect her emotional state, a reoccurring theme within her self-portraits – this is enhanced by colour theory, with the bold blue colours possibly hinting at feelings of sadness and isolation, emotion Goldin has battled throughout stages of her life. The lack of eye contact towards the camera and instead to herself could represent her inner conflict with her self-destructive lifestyle she dealt with whilst living in Boston.

This image is another example of how colour theory creates contrast and emotion in a photo. The vibrant red and orange tones of the image, taken in a collection of 3, enhance the photo by creating feelings of chaos, excitement and energy. The photo itself is of Goldin’s friend Sandy, getting ready to go out – a reoccurring scene in Goldins work. The image is candid but appears staged through enhancement of lighting and shutter speed – the slightly jittery, shaky effect that is left in the photograph captures the adrenaline of party culture Goldin experienced throughout her photographic journey. In contrast from the previous mirror photo, the image provides a unique viewpoint and a combination of both insider and outsider narrative that brings the viewer in the room with Goldin through the intimate embracing colours of the lighting.