Nan Goldin: the fabulous drag queens who launched my career

As found in the Guardian

Before she was the queen of hardcore photography, Nan Goldin was a normal American girl suffocated by the suburbs. As a teenager, she had her first exhibition in her hometown Boston, full of shots of the drag queens she had started hanging out with. Now, she’s opened up her archive to share these unseen early images – the first step in a career defined by shockwaves

More here

Links

Earlier Posts

A Record Of Real Life: Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin Photographer

Photographer Nan Goldin’s best shots

Tate

Guardian

Interview with The Guardian

Wiki

A Record Of Real Life: Nan Goldin

What a great resource Faded + Blurred is, you really should bookmark the site and go there often. This time we get one of their spotlights on an important photographer. The ever divisive Nan Goldin. Divisive? Well most people don’t get her work, don’t like it, find it difficult but she remains a major figure in contemporary photography. It is easy to see the line between her work and say that of Richard Billingham and his series on his parents “Ray’s a laugh”

“I knew from a very early age, that what I saw on TV had nothing to do with real life. So I wanted to make a record of real life. That included having a camera with me at all times.” – Nan Goldin

Do you ever look at someone’s work and think “I just don’t get it. Why is this important? Why is it in a gallery?” I have thought that of Nan Goldin’s work for years. To be honest, her work just dumbfounded me. How could this be considered art? I always thought they were just poorly lit, grainy snapshots. I wouldn’t take more than a fleeting glance without immediately passing judgment that I didn’t like it and therefore it wasn’t worth my time to examine or understand. As I was looking for a subject for the Spotlight, Nan Goldin’s name was suggested and my gut reaction was no. I realized, however, that if I don’t like something the least I can do is ask myself why not. I have come to the conclusion that all art is worthy of examination and questioning. If you don’t know anything about the work, you should find out as much as you can and you may come to appreciate it. Understanding the why behind what someone does can influence and sometimes even change your opinion of the work itself.

Even if you’re not familiar with many photographers by name, you may have heard the name Nan Goldin. Since the 1970s, she has been known for her shockingly raw images of desire, addiction, sexuality, and abuse. Her style is a part of the “snapshot aesthetic” which became popular in the early 60s and contains everyday subjects that don’t seem to be framed in any particular way. Goldin’s work, however, can’t be defined by just one particular style. When you find out what it was she was trying to do with her pictures, you learn that there are layers of meaning that go far beyond the first cursory glance. READ MORE HERE

Goldin was born in 1953 in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Living behind a facade of perfection and respectability, her parents taught her that there were certain things you just didn’t talk about – the biggest being her older sister’s suicide at the age of 19. Goldin was only 11 at the time and withdrew into herself. She says she didn’t speak for a very long time, but she still managed to cause trouble. She ran away at 14 and ended up in several different foster homes, but it was during this period that she was enrolled in an alternative education program. This was a place for kids that had been kicked out of “normal” schools – she says they all did drugs, had sex, and partied – but it was a place where she found people she connected with. It was here where she was given her first camera, a Polaroid, by a teacher. After that, the camera rarely left her hand.

See the full article on Faded + Blurred here

 

1000 photography links, tutorials, photographers, new camera reviews – posts

Would you believe that in the last 20 months we have made 1,000 posts about photography, wow seems like it was only a few weeks ago we dipped our toes into the world of blogging. Urged on by our favourite music blogger The Recommender to get stuck in, to share our knowledge and passion about photography; to spread the word and to bring the best photographs, photographers, tutorials, camera reviews, information about exhibitions and the wonder of the world of photography to those who care, you. Since October 2010 we have had over 120,000 views, our highest day was 957, I guess we must be doing something right some of the time.

©Steve McCurry – this is probably The Great Steve’s most famous picture but you should go and see his other work start here

We have had a look at our stats and rather encouragingly find that there is as much interest from you in the fantastic photographers we have brought to your attention as there is in cameras and tutorials. A good healthy mix we think.

Here is a list of the top 12 posts the highest has got over 6,000 views

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/top-10-compact-cameras-2011/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/light-painting/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/photographer-nan-goldins-best-shots-from-the-guardian/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/duane-michals-sequences/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/best-superzoom-bridge-cameras-2011/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/15-digital-point-and-shoot-cameras-used-by-pro-photographers/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/nikon-d800-review/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/cecil-beaton-photographer/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/steve-mccurry-london-exhibition-07092011-24092011/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/20-free-photography-ebooks/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/9-crazy-cross-eye-3d-photography-images-and-how-to-make-them/

https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/google-photography-prize-winner-viktor-johansson/

The top aggregated photographer, that is the most views across all the posts we have made is Steve McCurry this link should get you to all the articles where we have mentioned Steve

The interesting thing we have found is how many of you are interested in the less obvious photographers, Duane Michals comes top for visits to a single post, Cecil Beaton, Nan Goldin and Dorothea Lange all feature heavily, I am sure you never thought you would see those 4 names in the same sentence.

Top camera before and after it’s release was the Nikon D800

The most viewed tutorial was on Light Painting

Our most favourite sources for finding the best photography on the web, and in no particular order are:

Lightstalking, fantastic for tutorials, tips, ideas, features

Digital-Photo-School similar to Lightstalking and also from Australia

Cambridge In Colour for the most sophisticated and intelligent tutorials

The Denver Post for some of the best photojournalism around

The Atlantic, same as The Denver Post, fantastic images from around the world

The British Journal of Photography, just the most complete magazine for photographers

The Pixelated Image blog, David DuChemin is just the man, what a photographer an eye with soul

Photo Tuts for Photoshop and Lightroom tutorials

DP Review, where you find out about cameras, the best review site

Steve’s Digicams, as DP Review a great place to find out about cameras

Tripwire Magazine, we like this for general articles on photography

Magnum, the world’s most famous photo agency, we love this bit Magnum In Motion

Photography Served, a place for finding new photographers with great work

Photography Now, such a beautiful site showcasing the works of the masters of photography

There are undoubtedly lots more we could include here but if you are a regular to our site you will know who we love as inspiration and as a source of great articles.

We have had such great response to the articles we post, the sharing is the thing, finding what is wonderful and putting it out there. We greatly appreciate hearing from you and would welcome more ‘finds’ from you, would consider articles or portfolios you may wish to share with the thousands of like minded people we reach. Here is to the next 1000 posts

Keith Barnes, Oxford School of Photography

Nan Goldin Photographer

Rather surprisingly our most successful post ever has been about Nan Goldin, a photographer of great merit but who probably divides opinions. This from the Tate website gives an artist biography and has images.

“American photographer. Goldin began taking photographs as a teenager in Boston, MA. Her earliest works, black-and-white images of drag queens, were celebrations of the subcultural lifestyle of the community to which she belonged. During a period of study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, she began displaying her work in the format of a slide-show, a constantly evolving project that acquired the title (appropriated from The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht) The Ballad of Sexual Dependency in 1981. This collection of images had a loose thematic structure and was usually shown with an accompanying sound-track, first in the clubs where many of the images were taken and then within gallery spaces. In the 1990s Goldin continued to produce portraits of drag queens, but also made images of friends who were dying of AIDS and recorded her experiences travelling in Asia…”.….MORE

Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a taxi, NYC 1991

© Nan Goldin, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

Nan one month after being battered 1984 Nan Goldin

© Nan Goldin, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

Greer and Robert on the bed, NYC 1982

© Nan Goldin, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York

There is a very interesting interview by Angelique Chrisafis in The Guardian

‘My camera has saved my life’

From New York’s druggy nightlife to her parents ‘making out’, Nan Goldin chronicles the real and the raw. She talks to Angelique Chrisafis about art, pornography and tabloid critics

“Nan Goldin leads me into the bedroom of her Paris apartment, fluffs up a pillow and settles down on her bed, lighting a cigarette. Her pink dressing gown hangs over the door of her wardrobe; there are black and white stills on the wall. It’s fitting that the legendary photographer should want us to talk in her bedroom, side by side on the patterned bedspread: long before Tracey Emin’s unmade chaos, Goldin specialised in the silences of rumpled sheets. Since the early 1970s, she has shot herself and friends in bed – having sex, sleeping, arguing and, after Aids struck, dying. She curled up with her boyfriend Brian, and later shot a bruised self-portrait after he hit her.”.…MORE

Here are some links for further study

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Goldin

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

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

http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=7532

and here is a link to our original post

Paul Graham wins 2012 Hasselblad award

Self-taught photographer becomes first British winner of international prize for recognition of major achievements, writes Sean O’Hagan in The Guardian.

“Paul Graham has been named as the winner of the 2012 Hasselblad award, which is presented annually to “a photographer recognised for major achievements”. It is the first time a British photographer has won the prestigious international prize. Previous recipients include Robert Adams (2009), Nan Goldin (2007) and William Eggleston (1998).

Graham, who had a major retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery in London last year, is a self-taught photographer. He was born in Buckinghamshire and discovered photography through the books of great American pioneers like Robert Frank, Walker Evans and Paul Strand. He has lived in New York since the early 1990s. Graham first garnered critical acclaim with his early documentary work, including A1 – The Great North Road (1983) , a series shot in colour along the British motorway, and Beyond Caring (1985), which was shot in unemployment offices. Back then, Graham was a pioneer of colour in Britain, his work influencing subsequent generations of young photographers.”………MORE

Pittsburgh, 2004 (Lawnmower Man)From the series ‘A Shimmer of Possibilities’. Copyright of the artist, courtesy of Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London.The Foundation’s citation regarding the decision to award the 2012 prize to Paul Graham is as follows:

“Paul Graham is one of the most brilliant photographers of his generation. During the course of his nearly 40-year career, he has presented an extremely focused body of work, at once perfectly coherent and never monotonous. In images both sensitive and subtly political, he makes tangible the insignificant traces of ″the spirit of the times″ we do not normally see. With his keen awareness of the photographic medium, he has constantly developed innovative forms of working with all aspects of photography. This makes him a profound force for renewal of the deep photographic tradition of engagement with the world.”

More of Graham’s pictures can be seen here

Photographer Nan Goldin’s best shots – from The Guardian

Nan Goldin, is an artist and photographer that you either get or you don’t. Many people look at her pictures and struggle to understand why they are so lauded. Her work often has an autobiographical lead, showing the faces and more often bodies of those she shares her life with. You may know of her breakthrough work “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” and later “I’ll Be Your Mirror”

As Wikipedia says “She began documenting the post-punk new-wave music scene, along with the city’s vibrant, post-Stonewall gay subculture of the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was drawn especially to the Bowery’s hard-drug subculture; these photographs, taken between 1979 and 1986, form her famous work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency — a title taken from a song in Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera.  These snapshot aesthetic images depict drug use, violent, aggressive couples and autobiographical moments. Most of her Ballad subjects were dead by the 1990s, lost either to drug overdose or AIDS; this tally included close friends and often-photographed subjects Greer Lankton and Cookie Mueller.  In 2003, The New York Times nodded to the work’s impact, explaining Goldin had “forged a genre, with photography as influential as any in the last twenty years.”  In addition to Ballad, she combined her Bowery pictures in two other series: “I’ll Be Your Mirror…..MORE from Wiki

The Guardian has an interview with Nan Goldin by Sarah Phillips

“I don’t photograph adults so much any more. I don’t have a child and, psychologically, my focus on them is a lot about me wishing that I did. But I am a godmother to friends’ children around the world – in Berlin, New York, Sweden and Italy. I don’t remember much ever feeling like a child, so maybe photographing them triggers memories. They are wild and magical, as if from another planet. And they haven’t been socially conditioned yet, so they can scream and express how they feel publicly. Sometimes I envy them. When I am in a group of people, the children and I find each other’s eyes, and end up laughing at the same, unspoken thing.

I’ve been taking pictures of children since the early 1980s, and it’s become increasingly important to me. I see a continuum in the children of my friends, some of whom have died. It’s about hoping that my friends will bring up a new species of people.”….I certainly think that my work comes from a humanistic vision of the world, rather than some kind of manipulative, theoretical version of art. It’s about the people and places I love, and that haunt me.” Here is the rest of the article

She was born a girl but chose to grow up as a boy’. Photograph: Nan Goldin

All images ©Nan Goldin. There is a gallery of Nan Goldin images on the Guardian website here

There are images for sale on the ArtNet site and a full biography, here is that link  They also have a list of galleries currently selling her photographs here

from the Guardian article we learn…….
Influences: When I was starting out, John Cassavetes, Guy Bordin and August Sander. Now, Christer Stromholm and Anders Petersen.Top tip:Don’t do it. There are way too many photographers. Try to draw or get politically involved in something that matters. And unless you need to make art to stay alive, you shouldn’t be making art.High point: I appreciated everything as it came along – I didn’t know there would be more. But the retrospective at the Whitney in 1996, the last book I did, The Beautiful Smile, and my show at the Louvrewere real high points.Low point: The past seven years: I haven’t been able to publish a book because of a contract, and have been considered a dead artist.