Nan Goldin

Gilles and Gotscho embracing, Paris, France by Nan Goldin, 1992

Nan Goldin is an American photographer who has had the most direct and obvious influence on the photography of intimate lives. Her thirty year exploration of her 'family' of friends and lovers not only shows the the story of their intimate lives and depicts their relationships, but her work sets a standard for the way that intimate photography is created and judged. Goldin began taking pictures of her friends in the early 1970's, however it wasn't until the 1990's that she gained acclaim and a place in the art market. Goldin's first photographs that she took in her late teens, were a series of black and white images entitled 'Drag Queens'; which portrayed the daily lives of two drag queens that she lived with and shared their social circle. 

In the mid 1970's Goldin attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. During a year our when she had no access to a dark to to develop her black and white film, Goldin began to use colour slides and has used colour ever since. 

Nan Goldin moved to Manhattan in 1978 and continued to record the events, situations and developing friendships within the bohemian circle which she had become a part of. The first public showings of her slide images were in New York clubs in 1979, her audience were mostly artists, actors, filmmakers and musicians and many of them appeared in the images. Her first book "The Ballad of Sexual Dependancy was a personalised contemplation of subjects as sexual relationships, male social isolation, domestic violence and substance abuse. Goldin's essay in this book talks about her psychological need and obsession to make photographs of her loved ones, she talks about the effects of her sisters suicide when she was aged only eleven years old. In the 1980's Goldin was invited to exhibit her art around the world and she started to have solo exhibitions. Her photographs became a record of the impact of HIV and AIDS related illness' and drug addiction. 

Sometimes Goldin is seen as only recording bohemian and counterculture lifestyles, as her life and intimate circle changes, new subjects emerge. Recently Goldin has broken her drug addiction and quite literally has begun to see more sunshine, she has incorporated daylight into her photographs which became something very new to her work. 

Cotton, C (2009). The Photograph as Contemporary Art. 2nd ed. Holborn, London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. 136-139.

Layton. (2008). Nan Goldin. Available: http://clickphotos.wordpress.com/2008/04/30/nan-goldin/. Last accessed 24th apr 2012.