Nan Goldin - c/d?

For what's it's worth I find much of her work classic, even though some of it is very uncomfortable viewing. Or maybe because it so uncomfortable.

Here's the story - as I say, no-one is saying that it is a Nan Goldin photo, but mention of her made me search ilx for a thread.

I would say classic but with some reservation. The sad thing is that her exploration (of her private life and her style) has more or less resulted in a permament frost in the sense that she didn't and can't really tear away from her typical style and subject (without being compared to it and hence considered a bit of a letdown). I would think that the other female photographer, Cindy Sherman, I more or less worship as much, did not have that crux as much but still sufferend it anyway.

I remember watching a doc decades ago and just being blown away by her openess. Both she and Cindy are my favourites photographers.

http://static.royalacademy.org.uk/images/width370/snap-shots-618.jpg

This is one of my favourite Goldin pics by the way.

I don't care about Goldin but that stories nuts! The management invited the police in? I've emailed my friend who works there to see what's going on. Unfortunately he never checks his email.

'High Art' is awesome.

There was actually a Nan Goldin spread in the NYTimes style mag (which I usually don't even look at) this weekend. I can't find it on the site, but I liked it - even though her photos seem very stylish on some level she really manages to avoid the style trap. I think it's largely in the subjects she chooses and the way she photographs their faces.

From my friend: "it was nan - a pic of 2 kids playing in a kitchen one
kneeling/lying on the ground nekkid with her crotch facing front... totally not 'child porn' - but great to walk up the street and see a chronicle board with Baltic 'child porn' art work controversy on it... i take it they haven't said what it was in the news so as to provoke maximum controversy / get ya thinking its really baaaaad"

I was actually at the opening on Thursday because I'd been invited to go up and meet another artist showing there; the Nans were hung in a draped room where you had to be definitely over 18 to view. We had been told the police had visited because of a complaint but not that it had come from inside - be aware though that a lot of worthies were knocking around because a big collector born in Newcastle was showing her collection there.

lol elton john

Is there any one definitive/"best" Nan Goldin photography book? "Ballad of Sexual Dependency" seems to be the most famous or whatever but I kinda wanna see some of the crazy drag queens and stuff too. What should I get?

um isnt the ballad of sexual dependancy full of drag queens? its just a bunch of outtakes from the slideshow she used to show in CBGBs which was pretty much an extended self portrait, and by ext. portrait of downtown NY in the 80s (i saw some of it at SFMOMA recently) maybe I'll be your mirror is the most ambitious attempt at a full career retrospective catalogue but i might just be thinking that bc seeing the doc. that it accompanies on tv was my first intro to her and hence the persp i tend to think of her from (tho apparently she hates it) the stephen westfall interview with her in bomb magazine is available online and also pretty hilarious bc he kindof calls her an idiot in it about halfway thru iirc, westfall is nearly as good a writer as he is a painter.

her slideshow Heart Beat tore holes in me when i saw it at the pompidou in 2006 i wanna say

Oh that's right, you mentioned that interview before! Thank you for the reminder.

I saw the "Ballad" slideshow at MoMA about 2 years ago and was totally blown away and just sat there in awe for like 30 minutes while my friends wandered around impatiently. Don't recall if it was filled with drag queens though.

Am interested in seeing what she (or others "this is my real life" sort of photographers) where shooting w/r/t the queer/drag scene in NYC circa late-80's/mid-90's

iirc she tended not to be front and centre in the balls r anything, shooting them in taxi rides, dressing rooms, sidewalks. liminal spaces, emph on the transitional, the altern, an empowering sense of glamour but never in the specific sites of that glamour.

also i found it on youtube, and am now watching it.

part one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUIAsWsqiyk

thanking you. No, I think that's what I'm more interested in in this context, not so much the balls or runways (though those are nice too) but instead the sidewalks and taxis and dressing rooms and types of spaces that lent themselves less to "here I am performing" and more towards "here I am"

Holy shit, the juxtaposition of the "real-life" moving picture with the romanticized saturated photograph (and all of the feelings and emotions that I am projected onto it) is kind of jarring

yr query made me immediately think of:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ouxxa0eFam8/SmhcC7V965I/AAAAAAAAD2A/yXQUMq3ceyc/s400/diane_arbus_14.jpg

also catherine opie maybe? though her photos are very stylized and not very (or at least her photos of lesbians/transppl) 'documentary' which sounds like what you're looking for?

a friend of mine likes this about elinor carucci but i really dont care that much about what i've seen by her

interesting that all the examples so far are women, like is the diary format considered a "feminine" aesthetic, i hadnt thought of this before.

oh hay somebody shot some fairly ok footage of the thing i was talking about earlier, v NSFW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT1zqqXDM88

when i saw the WACK! show at PS1 i was struck by how much of the work was confessional or documentary in nature (cf. adrian piper's pieces where she documents every single thing she did that day, sylvia sleigh's portrait of the AIR gallery artists, of which she was a part, uhh i think lots of other stuff i'm forgetting at the moment)

well i mean spec. the photodiary.

theres a germaine greer article where she kindof moans about it being female artists failing to transcend their role as *muse* or something, that women fail to grasp their agency in art *outside* of being an image. I mean she uses sam taylor wood as her example i think, which seems pretty unfair not just to women artists everywhere but to art in general and western civilisation as a whole.

looool u really hate her huh

she's sooo crap!

photodiary is a popular form for gayz too i think (tillmans, mcginley)

wait yes, you might wanna look out for Jack Smith's photographs too stevie though they are hard to see i think?

jimmy de sana's also a good one to check out - he took some celeb portraits (debbie harry, david byrne) in e. village in the 70s/80s but he's best known for his nudes/s&m stuff (which i think are more interesting than mapplethorpe's)

What any juergen teller? Is he gay?

juergen teller is v. str8

Ordered the “Ballad” book on a bit of a whim, it got here today so it’s my Chanukah present to myself. I wish Morbius weren’t dead. Happy Chanukah everybody, keep freedom in your hearts and take pictures of your friends.

its just a bunch of outtakes from the slideshow she used to show in CBGBs which was pretty much an extended self portrait, and by ext. portrait of downtown NY in the 80s (i saw some of it at SFMOMA recently)...
― plax (ico), Tuesday, December 28, 2010 11:05 AM (nine years ago)

oh wow -- this feels like another life -- back when I worked at the SFMoMA and I'd get all visiting ilxors in for free. I remember plax wanted to see the Agnes Martins, but they weren't installed, and Stevie D wanted to see ... I forget, but he got to see the Agnes Martins lol

At the time I didn't realize it (Ballad) was a Kurt Weil reference

</3

classic

haven't been to SFMOMA in a while but the current Agnes Martin room is an oasis

so sad i missed the agnes martins although i did get to see the best ones at the AGO in toronto and albright knox in bufffalo. also the trip to sfmoma was still great and the best bit was getting to see all the video monitors being switched off after closing time!

that was a great trip