AIDS, Art, and Activism; capturing queer life through crisis
On World AIDS Day, Emery looks at how art changed the homophobic landscape and created a community solidarity....
Nan Goldin
Born in Washington D.C in 1953, Nan Goldin first picked up a camera at 15. Having lost her sister to suicide four years earlier, she used photography to bring a feeling of immortality to her relationships.
Nan’s approach to photography continued to place the most value in the subjects of her images and she went on to create works that are candid and deeply personal. In the early decades of her career she created intimate photographs of her friends, many of whom were part of the LGBTQ+ community, in real and raw moments. Unlike many photographers, Nan did not keep herself on the edges of these worlds, as an observer, she immersed herself within the images, including taking many self-portraits.
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Many of these images became a part of her most notable work, ’The Ballad of Sexual Dependency’. Taken between 1979 and 1986, ‘The Ballad…” began as a slideshow which she showed in New York nightclubs but soon progressed to a multimedia presentation with over 700 images and a musical soundtrack. The images range from self-portraits such as, ’Nan one month after being battered’, which depicts Nan, staring directly at the camera, with two black eyes, to images showing her friends getting ready for a night out, their reflection captured in a mirror, as they put on make-up.
Nan Goldin places the emphasis not on creating the perfect image, but in creating an image that is real, capturing any moment she wanted to, no matter the circumstances – “If I want to take a picture, I do not care if there is light or no light. If I want to take a picture, I take it no matter what.” (Foto Tapeta, 2003)
A moment, a person, a memory, forever captured in time.
By Becky Handley
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Throughout the 16 days of activism, we have posted about the work of women photographers who are highlighting violence against women in its many different forms, read their stories here....
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Anti-Violence Display
Violence against women takes many forms. For the month of February, we have a special display at the Heroines Quarter showing how different artists have tackled this problem through their work....
23rd December
Nan Goldin (b 1953) is an American photographer and activist whose work explores LGBTQ+ subcultures, sexual intimacy, HIV/AIDS crisis, and the opioid epidemic. Now, a new documentary film, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, directed by...
16 Days of Activism 2022
16 days of activism for the elimination of violence against women...
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Our overview of Heroine highlights from the 53rd iteration of the iconic Rencontres d'Arles....
Photo London 2022
Open to the public from 12th - 15th May, this year’s Photo London will bring together some of the most groundbreaking work in contemporary photography, as well as paying tribute to the pioneers of the past....
Zelda Cheatle Podcast: ‘The Photograph that Changed my Life’
Zelda Cheatle on her recent book: The Photograph that Changed my Life....
