A couple nights ago, I attended a late night screening of four documentary clips about Nan Goldin's life and work. I took lots of notes that will be very beneficial for the essay I am writing and for developing a greater understanding of Goldin's work, it's impact and it's significance.
I took notes in the dark so here are the typed up notes: Ballad of Sexual Dependency
80s started,
48mins, 30 diff songs, lyrics act as narrative
shown in underground radical places and then galleries
definitive 1987
-> prints just as important
books=photos only, works best
prints shown in large quantities = significant, laid out like memories
1985- book made of the slideshow - 6 months, 4 page intro explains the work- talks about sister's suicide
not about marginalised people - "we were the world", the straight world is weak
transgressed 'normal' society
only str8 people see it as outcasts
friend's suicide, feeling alone, finding a 'tribe'
Revisionism is dangerous- keeping the wrong things secret
-> photos are proof of the life she lived, there is no argument
intimacy vs autonomy
dependency on someone inappropriate relationship but the sex is good
str8 relationships don't work, why not?
struggle for autonomy
about her friends
lived w/ all the people in the photos
most died from AIDs, how many essential people the plague wiped out
lost people: creative, sensitive, imaginative, beautiful
in home, world, relationships, selves
camera as extension of hand
'sin to move a beer bottle' --> exactly what it was whatever camera came into work, friend who stole camera
-hated the quality discussion; its about content
no detail
no colour
no natural light - lived @ night = flash
Larry Clark 70s Talsa - huge influence
no one published own work @ time, always men photographers, hated her work
not 'good' photography
any artist has to do their work to stay alive
empathy + love
don't ask same questions as everyone else
why no memory before 3yo- kids from different planet
taught to forget
ambiguous sex + androgyny of kids
14yo niece came out as trans
ideal world wouldn't know gender signifiers
homage to children, parents fuck you up so message is don't have kids at end of book
subject matter, lack of technical ability
every moment is decisive, moments in between are magic
best work is in mistakes
photos happen through trust
can be political
otherworldly but present
life+art inseparable
celebration of love
diary since childhood, turned visual
record of life
emotional need over aesthetic choice
culture 'don't let the neighbours know'
anti-revisionist record of existence
can't be revised
friends sat around, getting naked
perfect prints in the early 70s, rich white men go to India taking beautiful photos
Jack Smith
Warhol
-> super queer for early 70s
idiosyncratic colour prints
documentary not media
real peoples real lives
emotional intensity
snap shot photographer - an insult, reclaimed
inspired by lovers, girls and boys
remembering shared events
keep people alive in memories
personal vantage point
photos came from direct interactions (private)
colour - saturated rich palette, an important formal element
same people for 25 years
diarist
portraitist
history of people
accumulation of images = narrative = rapid images, many slides, film over digital
relationship then photo
beauty in a person, see them how they see themselves
high risk life
push boundaries of acceptable
change self always, edit
AIDs, community damage
related to paintings like Munch
retrospective
narcissistic
NOT voyeurism, vivaciousness
what relationships led to (battery)
sexual intensity
on-going narrative
time of media critique
throwback to photography as truth
how close you could get to someone when sober (private) - vulnerable
preclude voyeurism, the model is looking @ you, makes you uncomfortable, they stare, not you
voyeur = she's not behind a window, from point of standing in front of the model, with her, the artist is engaged in the situation
incapable of bourgeoise
bohemian in soul
desire --> state of briefness of mortality + complexity of life
Cookie --> as mother, as friend, in death, tracing complex life
alienation, loneliness, dependency
melancholic, sorrow, loss, death
no shyness
Jewish + parents, suburban Maryland
live with no comfort
private lives as valuable + valid
men as women = third sex
lived w/ queens
revolutionary, argument to the struggle of gender
AIDs- cookie+husband both died
investment into friends
not statistical
humanity, complexity, concerned photography
doesn't cater to art market
in a world that knows no love, be loving
principle of life = give + take
work is a mirror
drugs, audience waited for 2 hours before a show once while she edited the photos before the slideshow
All by Myself - Cookie, black latex dress, black stripes, leaning against sink
A time where one photo should have said it all, she took many to show all diff aspects of someone
self harm, cocaine, 'I'm sorry' tattoo
Though Goldin herself says her work is not voyeuristic, I can't help but feel that it is. As much as an artist may not intend something, does not mean it won't be taken as such. Art is about interpretation, and every single different viewer will interpret it differently.
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