Art

If a still image can speak, it will tell you stories that will capture your imagination. It can describe how the photographer feels when taking the shot it can also explain the emotions by the subjects to which the photograph has been taken, what the ambience of the location was and what the main feelings are during the poses. Even if the subject of the picture is not a living thing, that subject can be brought to life by the amazing shot captured by the master photographer. Composition and lighting have also contributed to the message the image wants us to understand. But then again still images cannot speak...

Which leaves us the viewers create our own perception on what might the photo means. This has led to often wrong conclusions for those uninitiated by what the art offers. An image after being viewed can have different meanings, from different people some are quite far from the truth and others almost grasping it. The one, who really knows it and even feels the work, is the person at the back of the lens.

One artist who really understands and definitely has passion for her work is Nancy Goldin, popularly known as Nan Goldin, she is an epitome of an artist who works at the most intimate level her life is her work and her work, her life. It is nearly impossible to talk about Goldins photographs without referring to their subjects by name, as though the people pictured were ones own family and friends. It is this intimate and raw style for which Goldin has become internationally renowned. Her snapshot-esque images of her friends -- drag queens, drug addicts, lovers and family -- are intense, searing portraits that, together, make a document of Goldins life (Anon 2002).

Biography
Born on the capital city of the US,  Washington DC on the 12th of September 1953 (Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. 1994-2008). She left home at 14 as she lived in foster homes and attended an alternative school in Lincoln, Massachusets. On an article Jerry Saltz (n.d.) for Artnet Magazine, Nan Goldin explained that during the time she get out from home she has found her own family.On 1964 she wanted a alternate family for her own blood relations, this was after her notions of the existence of romantic love between the sexes and the sadness that enveloped her during the mourning of the death of a sister who committed suicide.She was fostered by a variety of families and soon she have found a family by becoming part of a group of isolated young men and women who were deeply involved with lifestyle of sex, drugs and violence (Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. 1994-2008).

Starting Photography
Nan Goldin who have been probably influenced by the work of American photographer Larry Clark- known for his photo documentary illustrating his young friends drug use in black and white(Hilgenfeld 2005).Goldin took up photography after a teacher introduced her to the camera in 1968 in Boston (donalfall n.d.).She also decided to study photography in order to preserve her sisters memories, in which basically set the tone for much of her life and work(same donalfall n.d.) . Together with friends, Goldin explored the aesthetics of fashion photography, her first published works in 1973 were black-and-white images of transvestites and transsexuals (Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. 1994-2008). Goldin admired these people for their truthfulness and special confidence that is why she strove for a documentary and objective depiction of them. Later Goldin brought her pictures from this scene together in her book The Other Side. After studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and the Tufts University in Boston, she moved on to color photography and has worked mostly with Cibachrome prints (Coote 1978).

Early Works
A documentation and reinterpretation of intimate moments between her friends and those she has chosen as her replacement family was basically Goldins early works. During this time she embarked on an enormous portrait of her life, making hundreds of colour transparencies of herself and her friends lying or sitting in bed, engaged in sexual play, recovering from physical violence against them, or injecting themselves with drugs (Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. 1994-2008)

Her work related to her relationships
Its just not about the picture Nan Goldin takes, but on how she uses those pictures to create a story and provide is viewers a glimpse of her reality. Her photographs are her lifes records capturing every moment represented on her world. During the 80s she set herself on moving to New York, living in a loft on the Bowery, she immersed herself n that citys underground club and music scene(Garratt 2002). Goldin documented everything drunken parties, relationships good and bad, evidence of beatings, all of which created an intense portrait of a close-knit group of friends Only a few galleries at that time ever showed photography, and Nan had modest expectation of earning her bread from her art. She lived cheaply and earned money working in a bar, exhibiting her pictures in underground venues as slide shows set to music(same as Garratt 2002).One of her, if not the most legendary work which was first shown in the clubs of New Yorks artistic society,  is The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1979-2001). In this Goldins work, she has explained in her introduction the problem of bridging the gender divide, when both male and female are incapable of unconditional love and honest communication (Goldin et al.1986). It is a illustrative diary chronicling the hardships for intimacy and comprehension between friends and lovers collectively described by Nan Goldin as her tribe.(Koriin n.d.) Pivotal to this piece of work was her own destructive and dependent relationship with a man named Brian(Art Institute Chicago 2006).Photos of Brian shows a character straight out of central casting, the perfect shuffle-footed prison drama junkie punk (Gottschalk 1996). It was also known that Brian would eventually beat her so bad that ended up leaving him (same as Gottschalk 1996). In an interview with Sheryl Garratt, Nan has said it was really very hard for her to live knowing that the person you loved had tried to kill you, so she constantly snorted drugs and was always on the road, showing her slide show all over the world and consequently making enemies everywhere(Goldin 2002) The book version of The Ballad (1986) explores relationships and includes such revealing images as Self-Portrait with Brian Having Sex, Nan and Brian in Bed, and Nan One Month after Being Battered (Nordstrm n.d.).

Rehab
During the years from 1986 to 1988, Goldin described  that those were one of the darkest years in her life, after being nearly battered to death in a hotel room in Berlin by his former lover Brian in which she needed  major surgery in her left eye (same as Gottschalk 1996).She barely took any pictures during that time  and ended up isolated in the Bower loft she lived in with another cruel and sadistic  man, in which she also stated that he was not her lover but a fellow comrade  in drugs who makes her life more miserable (same as Gottschalk 1996).

Feeling in despair, she admitted herself in rehab losing her beloved camera and a copy of her famous work the Ballad as it was taken away from her upon admission to the facility. She felt devastated and thought that she might never took pictures again as she felt her the camera and her work was being tossed away and a part of her life was lost.In her own statement during an interview with Sheryl Garratt, Nan stated People whove had a long history with drugs, after rehab they get very involved in staying sober, and many of them dont work again as artists. They believe the mythology that drugs were their inspiration, and people will feed that, too. When you get clean, theyll tell you that youre boring and you cant work any more because they cant live off you any more, they cant suck your blood, they cant expect you to provide them with their vicarious life. I was very hurt that way.(same as Garratt 2002).

But rehab helped Nan see a new light, before she usually photographs with any available light  and most of the time in dark hotel rooms and underground clubs, but upon her sobriety she begin to have a fresh perspective with the new light. The Natural light in which reflects a different side of Nan Goldin as this she rebuild herself with her camera and shifts her life to a more placid yet outstanding time.It is in this facility she created many images of herself. Photographs such as My Bedroom at the Lodge, Self-portrait in front of clinic, and Self-portrait with milagro reveal an introspective Goldin, somewhat humbled by her experiences at the hospital.

New Light
It was not just the detoxification clinic that have changed Nans focus, it was also the moment that here friends were struggling with their battle of an infamous disease AIDS. Perhaps most important of these friends was Cookie Mueller, a friend since 1976, the year in which Goldin started photographing her. Goldins series, entitled The Cookie Portfolio, is comprised of 15 portraits of Cookie, ranging from those taken at the parties of their youth to those from Cookies funeral in 1989 (The Art Institute of Chicago 2006). During the next few years, Goldin continued to photograph her slowly dwindling circle of friends, many of whom were afflicted with AIDS ( same as Anon 2002). She showed these photographs in many group exhibitions across the country and around the world and spent a year in Berlin on a DAAD grant, sponsored by a German organization that brings artists to Berlin ( Art Directory n.d.).  Her photographs now are focused on investigating issues of Drug addiction and recovery, the effects of AIDS, and the reconstruction of personal identity and community (Naggar 1992).

Nan Goldins photographs act as a diary in which she records specific times in her life, from the exploration of aesthetics of fashion photography for Drag queens and their activities, through the passing of dark point in her life living in New York as a battered woman with drug addiction, her self-portraits of her transformation to sobriety in the detoxification clinic and the part of her life when friends she loved the most has been taken away by AIDS.There is no artist, and certainly no photographer, of this era has created a more symbiotic relationship between life and art than Nan Goldin ( The Art Institute of Chicago 2006). For 35 years she provided as with real life accounts of not only other people, but her own life as well.To Nan, her camera is a mirror, the pictures are a diary through which she change. Her pictures reverberate with multiple truths.While they challenge our assumptions their premise is always hope. She gives the images power by providing a authenticity of emotion than on formal composition. The viewer simply as if peering into someone elses diary, feels drawn in, becoming one of Nans subject. One of her friends (same as Naggar 1992).