Contextual

Studies
Nov 09-Jan 10

Presentation Script

Nan Goldin
By

Stuart Williams
Solihull College
1953 Born Washington DC into a middle class Jewish family.

1967 Barbara Goldin, Nan‟s elder sister, had been locked up in various
psychiatric institutions during most of her adolescence for having
rebelled against the extreme conformity of her times, society and
family; committed suicide by throwing herself under a moving
train.
This would cause Nan to run away from home and then be
placed with a string of foster parents.

1968 Nan was introduced to photography at the age of fifteen by a

teacher who handed out Polaroid cameras to the students, at the
progressive Satya Community School in Boston. The school had
been based on the Summerhill School, here, in England. Quote
“there were no classes we ran around naked and had sex and
learned social skills”. (BBC Television “I‟ll Be Your Mirror” ,1995 also available on you
tube) It was here she would meet David Armstrong, and Suzanne

Fletcher.
David would go on to introduce Nan to the drag subculture in
Boston, including the Night club known as The Other Side,
owned by the Mafia.
During this period she would start studying fine art at the Boston
School of Fine Arts.

1972 Bruce Balboni, Sharon Niesp, Cookie Mueller and Nan would live
together in Provincetown, a gay community.
Bruce would introduce her to the slide show. Her work is most
often presented in this format and has been shown at film
festivals.

1973 She presented her first solo photographic exhibition in Boston,

featuring the city‟s transvestite and gay community.

1978 Graduated from the Boston Tufts University, with a qualification

in Fine Arts, then moved to New York to do documentary
photography featuring the post punk new wave music scene,
whilst gradually being lured into the hard drug subculture, which
for Nan would turn out to be a double-edged sword - as it would
 be the period that she would use for The Ballad of Sexual
Dependency.

1984 After a three year threesome of sorts; between herself, Brian,

and the drugs, she left him after a very a severe battering - in a
Berlin hotel - that almost claimed an eye, and nearly killed her.
True to form she documented the incident, with the harrowing
photograph “Nan one month after being battered”. From this
point forward she would enter into the mercy world of heavier
drug use, with more relationships and less photographs.

1986 Saw the realise of Nan‟s most prevalent works “The Ballad of
Sexual Dependency”, stemming from shows shown in Tin Pan
Alley and many other Punk rock clubs across the city. This was
viewed as a slide show, displaying for approximately 45 minutes,
accompanied with music. This show developed as Nan did, with
new photographs being added and music being changed, while
the underlying content of raw human emotion and intimacy
remained - featuring Nan‟s friends and New York‟s subculture of
drunken and drug fuelled parties, homosexuality, cross dressing,
sex and violence, and good and bad relationships.
She took her work on the road, travelling abroad, and bringing
the show to both the Edinburgh and Berlin Film Festivals.
It was during this period that Nan was blamed by Bill Clinton for
inventing “Heroin Chic”. She has replied that the idea of “heroin
chic” to sell clothes and perfumes was “reprehensible and evil”.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2002/jan/06/features.magazine27 last accessed Jan 9th)

1988 Nan very rarely left her home for six months, due to her drug
and alcohol abuse (doing 5-10 bags of cocaine a day). She
checked into rehab for two months, and then a half way house
for a further three months, where she began to document her
recovery.
1989 At this time Nan was having to come to terms with an ever
decreasing circle of friends dying from Aids related illnesses;
maybe the most important one being long time friend and
novelist Dorothy “Cooke” Mueller. Nan paid tribute to her life
with a collection of 15 photos from when she first met Cookie, in
the 70s, to her funeral, and entitled it, “The Cookie Portfolio”
which was then exhibited around the world.
1994/95 The more recent years have seen Nan collaborate with old
friends like David Armstrong publishing “A Double Life”, featuring
pictures from both artists demonstrating their different styles of
photographing the same subject.
In addition, she teamed up with Fellowship photographers,
including Armstrong Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, Mark Morrisroe, Jack
Pierson and a few others to form the “Boston School”- a name
they have been dubbed with to this day. While, closer to Nan‟s
roots, “Tokyo Love” sees her working with Japanese
photographer Nobuyoshi Araki, which featured the Tokyo youth
subculture.
2002 Nan falls into an empty swimming pool while she is in the set of
Mira Nairs film, Monsoon Wedding, in New Delhi and smashes
her hand. Surgery was not a success and she now finds it
difficult to turn her hand.
2003 Sees the release of the „Devils Playground‟, a retrospective
publication featuring much of her work from the early years, with
written pieces from other authors and influences such as Nick
Cave and Leonard Cohen - while Bjork also collaborated with
her, making the sound track to the slide show.
2004 „Sisters, Saint & Sibyls‟ is a story about three women inspired by
life and their own suicide, featuring photographs of Barbra
Goldin, the story of Christian Saint Barbara, and Nan‟s own
troubled past from addiction to recovery, together with a back
drop of her own family. The work shows three stories on the
separate screens, with the narrating voiced by Nan.
2007 Wins the much converted Hasselblad award and was presented
with it by Boris Mikhaiov on Saturday 10 November at the
Göteborg City Theatre.
Slide 3 Creative Influences

Nan‟s influences are far and wide. As I quote “Anything that I see and I
love is an influence” (http://fototapeta.art.pl/2003/ngie.php. Last accessed 6jan2010.) So, I
have quite a list to go through now, but while Nan was in Tufts
University she took classes in Russian literature and professed to love
Faulkner‟s works. She took drawing classes to enable her to see
pictures more clearly. She was studying Movie History and had a great
amount of admiration for the old movies from the 1940‟s and 50‟s, on
occasions skipping school to watch 2 or 3 movies a day featuring the
silver screen goddesses such as Marlene Dietrich and Bette Davies.

Goldin photographs the body in such a way as to reveal both its

corporeality (in the manner of Stanley Spencer‟s paintings, or Egon
Schiele‟s drawings) and its vulnerability.
(http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/making_up_is_hard_to_do last accessed Jan 9th2010)

Rothko and Caravaggio both took part in influencing Nan‟s work” Some
of my pictures of boys having sex, they have the same sense of light as
Caravaggio”( http://fototapeta.art.pl/2003/ngie.php. Last accessed 6jan2010.)Although I
struggle to see the influence of Rothko in her work, other than the uses
of highly visible colour as he seems to paint emotions more than
pictures, we must remember that at this time she still was shooting in
black and white before that fateful day of loading a colour film by
accident.

Nan also seemed to be well aware of the fact she was shooting the
same subjects, most of the while, and goes a long way to use examples
of artist and film makers who have done the same, such as Posolini,
who used boys from the street that he loved and desired. Fassbender
and Cassavetes all used the people over and over again, while
Caravaggio only painted the people he knew.

This leads me to believe that these were the artists that lead her into
the justification of a documentary style of photography. It is as if she
was looking for some sort of prior permission. She is on record for
saying as much some thirty years later “ I always felt that I have the right
to photograph only my own tribe or people, when I travel, to whom I get close
to and that I gave something to. I never took pictures with a long lens, it is
always short and I have to get close to people I photograph.”
(http://fototapeta.art.pl/2003/ngie.php. Last accessed 6jan2010.) Thus making the
photograph open and honest, rendering it free from explanation; whilst
never plagiarising a scene from a movie or a pose from a picture, just
documenting life as it happened.
Goldin has stated that the biggest influences are her friends, among
who are her extended family, Cookie, Bruce and Sharron, all of whom
are featured very heavily in Nan‟s photographs, especially the early
intimate ones. The fact that they were her extended family meant that
she had the right to photograph them all, at all times. Its worth
pointing out that there have never been any pictures published by Nan
without the permission of her subject; indeed, it‟s a fact that she feels
very strongly about this, fearing it would be an infringement of trust.

There was only the question of the style in which the photograph would
be taken in. While Nan‟s work has been compared to Diane Arbus, she
and Arbus‟ daughter both feel that her own work is dissimilar in the
main, with the only common ground being empathy towards the
subjects, but being displayed in a very different manner. While Arbus
was a genius in photographic composition, she gave little regard to how
the drag queens may have felt. Indeed, Nan found there was a deep
seated hatred of Arbus‟s work within the Drag circles, as they felt she
didn‟t respect the way they wanted to be. There is no getting away
from the fact that Arbus was there a long time before Nan was, and it‟s
hard to see how Arbus wouldn‟t have influenced her, even if just on the
subject matter‟s content alone, giving Nan the justification to publish
such works.

Whereas, Larry Clark‟s book „Tulsa‟ would set a precedent for Nan,
Tulsa featuring serious drug abuse and sex amongst some of the youth
community of Tulsa Oklahoma. Clark had lived and done as they did
making it the first photo dairy of its kind, but that is where the
similarities would end, as Clark worked in grainy black and white and
came from the other end of the spectrum with regards to gender and
relationships.

Horst P Horst, Cecil Beaton, August Sander and Weegee, who also
frequently strayed into the area of glamour photography, would have a
bearing on Nan‟s work, along with fashion and glamour magazines.

It‟s said that in 1973 Nan was quite taken by a Stephen Shore
Exhibition that was featured in the New York Light Gallery, entitled
„American Surface‟, which was a snap shot photographical diary of the
photographer‟s trips across the states, displayed on Kodak prints
reflecting everyday life. This, I feel, would have set a milestone for
Nan, demonstrating the accessibility into the insight of others‟ lives,
thoughts, and emotions. Making the mundane attractive runs through
her work like a vein, considering that the life of drugs and transexualitly
would have been the norm for Nan.
There seems to be one overall influence, alongside the death of Barbra,
that might override all the above influences and, metaphorically
speaking, use them as if attaching wheels to a vehicle poised on the
edge of a steep slope waiting to roller-coast its way to the bottom of a
deep dark ditch. Nan herself has admitted that the Velvert Underground
“influenced me incredibly” while she was a teenager. “It made me want to
be a junkie,” (www.charlierose.com/view/interview/5797. Last accessed Jan 2010)she said on
the Charlie Rose show in 2006. These two things would set the back
drop for what would be nearly 30 years of her work. It would seem that
Nan‟s interest in movies and the comprehension that they were fiction,
gave her motivation to film or record in part real life, real emotion,
dramas and celebrations,. “I knew from an early age what I saw on
television had nothing to do with real life, so I wanted to make a record of real
life”. (BBC Television “I‟ll Be Your Mirror” ,1995 also available on you tube)

Understanding this, she knew she would have to carry the camera at all
times. The camera would serve many purposes such as a way of
identification as if to justify her presence and, to quote Nan, to
“communicate and seduce people”, (BBC Television “I‟ll Be Your Mirror” ,1995 also available on
you tube) as well as a tool for her to remember what might have otherwise
been forgotten through intoxication “It was my way of being fully present in
the moment, but being able to hold on to the moment at the same time, so that I
could save the moment but live the moment fully without having to worry about
remembering it.” (BBC Television “I‟ll Be Your Mirror” ,1995 also available on you tube)and as a
product of this, to create the photo-diary.

Analysis of 8 photographs

I shall quote Nan here “There's no deeper meaning. I don't think that way.
My work is never really metaphorical. My work is about exactly what it's
about.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2002/jan/06/features.magazine27 last accessed Jan 9)
So, in short, what you see is what you get. There is no depth so don‟t
hurt your head looking for something that just is not there; respect the
work for what it is.

Picture 1 Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC, 1983

Coming from a very famous set of pictures inspired by Nan having

taken so many intimate pictures of her friends unrehearsed as always;
the camera set up on a tripod and the picture taken via cable realise.
Typical of Nan‟s trade mark style of capturing a raw emotion, the
picture shows Brian having a cigarette, looking subdued after making
love to Nan, and Nan looking at him with wanting eyes - perhaps
looking for some affection - probably stereotypical of so many
relationships. The next picture in the series would show them both
sitting up in bed looking unhappy...The relationship would end within
12 months.
Picture 2

Nan Goldin: Jimmy Paulette + Taboo! In the bathroom, N.Y.C. 1991

This is a particularly strong image, out lining Nan‟s obsession with

genders. The scene depicts an unmistakable male back, with Jimmy
(who is partly made up) looking lovingly at the camera, with his left
hand placed affectionately on Taboo‟s back. The image demonstrates
the stages of transformation from male to, what Nan would refer to as,
the third gender.

Picture 3

Kim in rhinestones, Paris

This is one of my favourite Goldin pictures, showing Kim who had had a
sex change. Clearly she is very proud of her body and has every
opportunity to show it off in its full glory, but instead chooses to coyly
hide her breasts suggesting an amount of dignity. Whilst also captured,
but not in the composition, is the empathy and respect that Nan has for
what some considered to be one of the prettiest girls in Paris.

Picture 4

Roommate with teacup, Boston, 1973

This is one of Nan‟s early photos, documenting the extreme emotion of

the hardship of being a drag queen in the early 1970s, with her flat
mate looking like he has the world‟s worries on his shoulders; a little
haggard with his blouse shoulder strap hanging off, and slightly out of
focus due to a narrow depth of field - no doubt feeling totally defeated
by the homophobic political view of the day; clinging on to a cup of tea
in the hope that all will be set to rights after the tea is drunk.

Picture 5

Self-portrait with milagro, The Lodge, Belmont, MA, 1988

Nan in rehab - this shows a poignant image of Nan, blurred with no

defining edges which must have been how she was feeling at that time,
with the focus accidently picking out the logo of the hospital that was
caring for her. It‟s as if she is in some way fused into the care unit, with
a loss of her own identity, while the focal point was the care centre,
and what it might change her into when she comes out the other side.
It must have been very hard being, to all intent and purposes,
imprisoned; stripped of everything that you could depend on.
Picture 6

French Vogue

A far cry from what we‟re used to seeing form Nan, but at the same
time it‟s got Nan written all over it - this picture is one of Nan‟s rare
fashion shoots done for French Vogue, with that run down urban graffiti
background featuring a moody looking model with a big 80s hair do,
whilst bearing all the hall marks of Heroin Chic, and shot with a soft
focus, appearing as if it were a snap shot. In addition, it has over
saturated colours, with the model posing off centre of the image,
abiding to the rule of the degree of thirds.

Picture 7

Vivienne in the green dress, NYC, 1980

Vivienne is quite obviously dressed up ready to go out, and looking very

proud but somewhat ambivalent, maybe looking for a compliment on
her green dress. I think you can plainly see that Nan has a huge
amount of empathy for her drag queens, and is able to make a picture
speak emotions.

The composition, with the white window frame acting as leading lines
to the subject and the blue wall background and the highly saturated
skin tones, along with green dress, all complement each other so well
in an unlikely mixture.

Picture 8

Nan Goldin - Valerie and Gotscho embraced, Paris, 1999, Galerie Yvon
Lambert

The image depicts a couple engaged in a hug, true to Nan‟s

documentation and fascination into relationships, and genders being
truly unassuming of any particular gender. Valerie‟s mind clearly seems
to be somewhere else and her left hand hanging limp, not returning the
emotion, while her right hand is placed on his back, almost for effect.
Gotosho seems to have almost moulded himself into her - looking for a
response; seemingly one gender no stronger than the other.

Picture 9

Nan Goldin - Valerie and Bruno in bed with blue blanket. Paris. 2001
Highly saturated Ilfochrome and slightly out of focus, due to a slow
shutter speed and low light. The image depicts a couple engaged in
foreplay, true to Nan‟s documentation and fascination with relationships
and genders, and is truly unassuming of any particular gender. Nan‟s
use of the need for people to need sex is demonstrated clearly here.

She could be a Rimbaud, a Genet, a Pasolini or a Hubert

Selby Junior - ripe for early death and a place in immortality
as a „cult‟ artist. (http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/making_up_is_hard_to_do last accessed
Jan 9th2010)

She has expressed herself and her world, and this is a task at
which few succeed.(http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/making_up_is_hard_to_do last
accessed Jan 9th2010)

Michael Bracewell, writer, novelist and cultural commentator

Michael Bracewell was born in London in 1958.
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Books

Charlotte Cotten (2004). The Photographs as contemporary

art. London: Thames & Hudson ltd.
Garry Badger (2007).The Genius of Photography. London:
Quadrille publishing ltd

Reuel Golden (1999). C20 Photography. London: Carlton

Books.

Television

BBC Television “I‟ll Be Your Mirror” ,Director GOLDIN, Nan

Director COULTHARD, Edmund (1995)