I was once sensible, but now I'm a silly romantic. Nevertheless I have a good head on my shoulders, a typewriter, all of New York City, black tea, words, solitude.
![‘Photographer Nan Goldin’s Best Shots’
“The past seven years: I haven’t been able to publish a book because of a contract, and have been considered a dead artist.”
To me Goldin seems so sad and that makes me sad too. Goldin’s bow and arrow were taken away from her. Her field- what she knew well, progressed and eventually mutated into something she couldn’t relate to, causing her to lose faith and withdraw. The issue of the demise of film photography can sometimes become heated; there are so many sides, so many pros and cons to the digitalization of photography, so many arguments as to what is art and what is valid. Goldin’s hiatus from photographing has a lot to do with it.
But I don’t want to think about that right now. Maybe it is because of the steadily worsening fever I have right now, but what I do know at this moment is how this woman once held photography as her craft of choice. Film photography was Nan Goldin’s mode of expression. In The Guardian’s cover of her series on children, it’s become clear to me that she feels she’s lost that. Her heartache really comes through. And yet, through her disillusionment, the series says so much about her sincere love for children. This is because regardless of whether she is practicing or not, Goldin’s creative eye remains. Clicking through her characteristically unpretentious snapshots of kids, their costumes, their gazes, their mothers, all of that comes through so well. There are no frills when it comes to Goldin and that’s one of the things I appreciate about her work. She never exposes- she shares.
“I’m interested in the melancholy I see, and the way children retreat into their own world. I’m very interested in their relationships to their parents – whether it is obvious that they are close, or ambivalent… I like the ones where kids dress themselves up. Probably my favourite picture in the slideshow is of my goddaughter Klara, standing on a paint can singing, with scarves wrapped around her… [Children] are wild and magical, as if from another planet”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyn6zm38zC1qfnoedo1_1280.jpg)
‘Photographer Nan Goldin’s Best Shots’
“The past seven years: I haven’t been able to publish a book because of a contract, and have been considered a dead artist.”
To me Goldin seems so sad and that makes me sad too. Goldin’s bow and arrow were taken away from her. Her field- what she knew well, progressed and eventually mutated into something she couldn’t relate to, causing her to lose faith and withdraw. The issue of the demise of film photography can sometimes become heated; there are so many sides, so many pros and cons to the digitalization of photography, so many arguments as to what is art and what is valid. Goldin’s hiatus from photographing has a lot to do with it.
But I don’t want to think about that right now. Maybe it is because of the steadily worsening fever I have right now, but what I do know at this moment is how this woman once held photography as her craft of choice. Film photography was Nan Goldin’s mode of expression. In The Guardian’s cover of her series on children, it’s become clear to me that she feels she’s lost that. Her heartache really comes through. And yet, through her disillusionment, the series says so much about her sincere love for children. This is because regardless of whether she is practicing or not, Goldin’s creative eye remains. Clicking through her characteristically unpretentious snapshots of kids, their costumes, their gazes, their mothers, all of that comes through so well. There are no frills when it comes to Goldin and that’s one of the things I appreciate about her work. She never exposes- she shares.
“I’m interested in the melancholy I see, and the way children retreat into their own world. I’m very interested in their relationships to their parents – whether it is obvious that they are close, or ambivalent… I like the ones where kids dress themselves up. Probably my favourite picture in the slideshow is of my goddaughter Klara, standing on a paint can singing, with scarves wrapped around her… [Children] are wild and magical, as if from another planet”
Notes
