Week 4: Notes on Nan Goldin

About Nan Goldin

Background

• Born in Washington, D.C., in 1953 

• Her sister took her own life when Goldin was 12 
• Goldin left home at 14 to live in foster homes and communes.

• She was introduced to photography at the age of 15 

It was during this period that she enrolled at Satya Community School in Boston, an institution that believed the school should fit the child, as opposed to the other way around.

It was there she was given her first camera by a teacher and began taking Polaroids of herself and those around her. From the start, she was an instinctive observational photographer.

• She moved to a suburb of Boston with her family at the age of 25 

Here, Goldin was introduced to the drag subculture in Boston, and a particular club called “the Other Side”

An excessive use of drugs and alcohol mixed with abusive relationship were her usual life

Where she made friends with drag queens and began photographing the drag queens beauty contests, her aim was depict her subjects in a straightforward and non-celebratory fashion as these were people of her own social circle. 

She started her career taking photographs of her friends and family while studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. 

She begun with a black and white snapshot recording the journey from young adolescence into adulthood, depicting intimate and uncompromising shots

• Graduated from Tufts University with a degree in fine arts in 1977 

• moved to New York soon after and began taking the photographs that would become The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

Cultural/political context

Much of her work explores the conventions of gender politics

It is about what it is to be male, what it is to be female, what are gender roles 

Within an interview she was reported to confirm her personal hints of feministic values. 

"I decided at the age of five that there was nothing my brothers can do and I cannot do"

Having grown up during the era of conformism of the 1950s, Goldin realised how hard it was for females to own their individual identities.

During her older years, she realised that there was no one-fits-all mould for a relationship, that sexual attraction and love could be different things, and that marriage could result in violence, pain and re-marriage. 

It’s these subconscious realisations that make for the politically charged pages of The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. 

As the photographer put it in the introduction to The Other Side: “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”.

The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

A clear example of her gender politics theme is portrayed in The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1976-96) 

This is a 1985 slide show exhibition and 1986 artist’s book publication of photographs taken between 1979 and 1986 by Goldin.

It includes portraits of individuals, images of separate and mixed-gender groups, and shots of coupling, partying, and so on

It is very much about gender politics long before this kind of title or topic would be taught within institutions and widely discussed both within academia and societies of the West. 

It was in the 1970s when gender politics became widely discussed in western societies. 

So Goldin was part of this new growing discussion.

The path towards establishing it on academic curricular had started, with few, early courses in womens studies. 

Through an accurate and detailed record of her life, Ballad reveals Goldin’s personal odyssey as well as a more universal understanding of the different languages men and women speak, and the struggle between autonomy and dependency.

Style of photography

"The Snapshot Aesthetic"

• an informal style, ignoring the ‘rules’ of formal composition, lacking in pretence and even in ambition
• it is an artless document of a given moment in time
• it is most often shot using natural light, though if used with a flash the flash is usually harsh
• Shot in often saturated colour and flash-lit, it was initially dismissed, she says, mainly by male photographers. "I didn't really care about 'good' photography," she once said, "I cared about complete honesty."

Photography aesthetics & composition

The substance of the images ranging from Transgender, Sexuality, violence and death are captured in full colour, yet, her undertones are extremely black and white

Most presentations will be executed in a pair, it is important, it is clear that BOTH parties have contributed sufficiently and equally to the research and presentation as a whole.