Art Lies, Volume 23, Summer 1999 Page: 53
60 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Nan Goldin
CONTEMPORARY ARTS MUSEUM
HOUSTON
by Edwin GallaherThe Ballad of Photographic Necessity
When encountering Nan Goldin's photographs
whether the encounter is in a group show or
in the numerous monographs of her and her
collaborator's work-one is first impressed
with the honesty of her garish, brutally lit color
portraiture. However with successive viewings
that impression is tempered with suspicions of
provincialism. Part of the problem is that many
of her obviously quickly-taken photographs
deal with issues which seem at first blush to be
topical, or at least topically motivated, and such
an impulse often makes for art that seems shrill.
Furthermore, although her photographs treat
her numerous obsessions with poignancy and a
staunch belief in the transcendent nature of
human suffering, Goldin's more-is-more
aesthetic and the great proliferation of her
images that since 1979 have been made avail-
able by the artist make these obsessions seem at
times finite and heedlessly opportunistic.
Fortunately, Nan Goldin: Recent Photographs
at the Contemporary Art Museum's
Perspectives Gallery is such a small show that
each of her large prints can be savored individ-
ually for a long time. And it's time well spent,
for in the current exhibit there's not only a
greater variety and a greater expansiveness to
the photos themselves, but many of Goldin's
nascent themes are rendered more explicitly.
For instance, it's now abundantly
apparent that part of Goldin's project has
always been a critique of the peculiarities and
pratfalls of human pleasure. The key to
thinking through her innumerable pictures of
friends, lovers, drag queens, etc. in squalid,
dimly-lit bars (represented in this exhibition
by 1995's Kathleen at the Bowery Bar, NYC) is
to realize that thematically, Goldin's subjects
are the most vulnerable when they try to expe-
rience pleasure. A good case in point is her still
life, Breakfast in bed, Torre di Bellosguardo,
Florence. The majority of the picture consists
of that very breakfast: a radiant bounty of
croissants, fruit, coffee, cream and soft-boiled
egg are presented in the center of what appears
to be a canopy bed. However, the point of the
photograph lies beyond what we can see, for
beyond the folds of the bedspread and the
curtains of this very symmetrical composition,
rests--well, nothing-only the void in one ofthe deepest blacks I have ever seen rendered in
a color photograph. Obviously the pleasure of
breakfast in bed is countermanded by the real
existential crisis of filling that void, getting
past that breakfast and living through the rest
of the day. The photograph is simply one of
Goldin's best.
Besides more emphatically stating
thematic concerns, the works in Recent
Photographs seem more willing to utilize land-
scapes as a means of expression. The fact that
every photograph in the show is captioned with
the name of a place is tip-off that Goldin is
looking to locate her people in a world, in a
context, and as a result, her stock-in-trade
portraits and self-portraits are far more
generous. In fact, pictures such as Gigi in the
blue grotto with light, Capri, Pawel laughing on
the beach, Positano and Self-portrait on bridge at
golden river, Silver Hill are almost opulent. The
Self-portrait is particularly revealing since it's
one of a series of photographs key in her work
where Goldin portrays herself as other: in the
picture she is faceless, merely a shadow
standing on a bridge that cuts diagonally across
the lower half of the photograph. But as she
leans out over the bridge the light from the
"golden river" scintillates not only with the sun
(which must be directly behind the photogra-
pher) but with the shadowy presence of the
photographer herself. It's as if the warm
garnets, golds, and siennas of the river are
cascading around the lone figure on the bridge
to comfort not only the photographer, but
her efforts as well.
Yet such generosity is not just reserved
for herself. In numerous photographs such
as Pawel's back, East Hampton, the dear
My Father shaving, Swampscott, MA and
even the harrowing (but blameless)
Relapse/Detox, her once exclusively jaded
eye treats her subjects with care and
approval. But finally, what separates Recent
Photographs from her earlier work is the
exhibit's sense of necessity. Golden has for
once come up with compositional and
printing strategies that capture not only
fleeting, physical reality, but also metaphysical
essences or certainties. Surely there are few
photographs of children that capture the giddyawkwardness and sincerely hopeful presence of
Claes' baby daughter, Ulricka, Stockholm, with
its dusky tones and its centered subject's stead-
fast but non-confrontational gaze.
None of this, of course, matters if the
viewer is unwilling to follow Goldin on her
private and often extreme investigations into
the world. Although her subject matter is often
ugly, Goldin seems to have found through a
hard-won maturity and pure aesthetic sensi-
bility a way to transcend both the limitations of
her earlier aesthetic and obsessive thematic
concerns.
Nevertheless, aesthetic problems remain to
be solved. Goldin desperately needs to stop
scrambling chronologies and to recognize and
present her work in distinct periods: the photos
here are dated from 1994-1998, and without
much effort distinctions could be made that
might aid the viewer.
Overall, though, the work in Recent
Photographs presents Goldin's vision more
compassionately and strangely enough, this
makes the photographs seem more realistic.
Like many of her vulnerable subjects, Goldin as
an artist needs the hope that several of the
photographs here offer. Despite a world tragi-
cally in flux, it is clear in calmer works such as
David H. on the terrace, Hotel Beau Rivage
Palace, Lausanne, that peace of mind can be
attained through the clarity and assertion of the
photographer's lens. (Indeed, one wonders at
times whether or not the world for Goldin
exists beyond the reach of her camera.)
Nonetheless, in Recent Photographs Goldin
presents life as beautiful, vulnerable-and in
every gorgeous semantic variation of the
word-Goldin. ONan Goldin
Lil laughing, Swampscott, MA, 1996
Cibachrome photograph, 30" x 40"
Photo: Courtesy of the Artist and
Matthew Marks Gallery, New YorkARTLIES SUMMER 1999 53
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Lightman, Victoria H. Art Lies, Volume 23, Summer 1999, periodical, 1999; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228053/m1/55/?q=%22Bryant%2C+John%22: accessed June 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .