Thursday 5 April 2012

Nan Goldin


Nan Goldin was born in Washington D.C. in 1953. As a teenager she began taking photographs in Boston, MA while studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Art. Her earliest work of black and white drag queens was a celebration of the subcultural lifestyle of the community where she belonged. Her work was based gender, sexuality, transexuals, etc. Goldin mainly took photographs of people in the nude, some of them were hugging and kissing even having sex. Goldin said in a youtube clip that she went to a school based on Summerhill, England which is a free school where people were running naked and at that point she became obsessed with taking pictures. On her first subject was David Armstrong who was a drag queen and through him she a whole community of drag queens which must of made David Armstrong her inspiration on photographing other drag queens.

Goldin says that she is NOT a sex addict but loves working with it in photography even when taking photos of herself and her boyfriend having sex and after sex. Her boyfriend Brian was with her from 1981 till 1984 who he was also battering her explaining the top image of Goldin with two black eyes.

Warning: The last link to a youtube clip contains nudity, genital exposure and images of a sexual nature.

Bibliography

http://www.matthewmarks.com/artists/nan-goldin/

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/nan-goldin-2649

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwISjOF8k8c


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1 comment:

  1. Unknown1 December 2013 at 08:37

    is this seriously all you can write about her? really?
    cause, onestly, I think she deserve more, and to be precise, David Armstrong was her best friend and when he became a drag he introduced her to the underground world of those who couldn't live their life during the daytime and had to live in the shadow. She became the photographer of the school and start using tha machine for a daily diary, not becouse she liked looking at naked people. She wanted to show to everyone what the real life was, and that was related to the fact that she grow up in a very strict family, where the parents tend to cover every thing and don't let anyone know anything about what was going on in the house, even the fact that her sister died suicide.
    Nan goldin is one of the best photographer, and this is not related to the quality of her photos, but to the sensibility and the emphaty that you can feel.
    Mainly she took photos of her friends, not of horny naked people having sex.
    (sorry for my bad english, i'm italian)

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