[BRIEF NOTE] More on Nan Goldin
Sep. 22nd, 2004 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldFor a few different reasons, I've been thinking a lot about the American photographer Nan Goldin. I'm surprised, in retrospect, to see that I only briefly noted the exhibition (from 23 May to 7 September, 2003) at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal. In many ways, the memory of those images--so raw, so powerful--has served as a kind of backdrop, or perhaps better yet a kind of inspiration. Towards what, I'm not sure.
Today, I found the exhibition catalogue listed in the Toronto public library database, and requested to look at it. The photos are as good as I remember them. The nice thing about the catalogue, of course, is that it includes the illuminating essays of Paulette Gagnon (Québécois curator, from the MACM) and Éric Mézil (French curator, from the Collection Lambert en Avignon). Sadly, I automatically skipped over the French to read the English; lapsed habit of bilingualism, I'm afraid. I find that Paulette Gagnon, in her essay "Self Drifting into Otherness," pins Goldin's work down when she writes:
Nan Goldin is good.
Two preliminary conclusions present themselves:
On reflection, I've come to two more conclusions:
Today, I found the exhibition catalogue listed in the Toronto public library database, and requested to look at it. The photos are as good as I remember them. The nice thing about the catalogue, of course, is that it includes the illuminating essays of Paulette Gagnon (Québécois curator, from the MACM) and Éric Mézil (French curator, from the Collection Lambert en Avignon). Sadly, I automatically skipped over the French to read the English; lapsed habit of bilingualism, I'm afraid. I find that Paulette Gagnon, in her essay "Self Drifting into Otherness," pins Goldin's work down when she writes:
These photographs touch our gaze and aspire in their essence to open us up to [the] hidden dimension of our selves. Watching the slide shows, we establish links among the fluid progression of the images. The absence created by the interval between the projected slides has ties to the psychological realm, the subconscious, a place not far from nothingness--an untrammelled, abstract space. This space inserts a suspension into the flow of images, encouraging the imagination to add its contribution to the reading. Entering Nan Goldin's world also means, then, permitting her to interrupt the rhythm of our lives. The artist presents us with her own vulnerability, bearer of an ideal of truth and authenticity. She exposes her fragility through her own profound involvement. She bares her most private self to the public gaze. To reveal oneself in this way implies an absence of self-restraint, a degree of introspection and personal commitment possibly aimed at a reinvention of the self. Nan Goldin refuses to cut herself off from the world, refuses to hide. She is there among her friends--her "family" as she calls them--submerged. This immersion in otherness smoothly sketches the outline of a new type of photographic act. The artist traces a path through the reality she captures by invading her own territory (50).
Nan Goldin is good.
Two preliminary conclusions present themselves:
- I need to see more Nan Goldin photos.
- I need to read more French-language material.
On reflection, I've come to two more conclusions:
- I need to go back to Montréal.
- I need to know more about the photographic arts.
