Nan Goldin

'People who are obsessed with remembering their experiences usually impose strict self– disciplines. I want to be uncontrolled and controlled at the same time. The dairy is my form of control over my life. It allows me to obsessively record every detail. It enables me to remember.' Nan Goldin, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency- 1986

So, I bought this book for a project on intimate life, thinking I will probably look at the pictures and put it in the bookshelf among the hundreds of other books I've flicked through and forgotten and I almost did, until I started reading the text on the first page and within the paragraph I found this odd connection between Goldin and myself. Something I never realised about myself until I read the words as if they were coming from my own mouth. I cannot say I can compare myself or my work to the level of Goldin's or even to her personal experiences, but I can say that I have a new understanding of her and her work as something I can relate to and look to for inspiration.
 
 

 

One of the pictures in the book that strikes me most is on page 22, 'Self Portrait in Blue Bathroom, London 1980'. In all the other pictures she gets so up close and personal with the people she photographs, from people hugging to one man masturbating, yet in this image she seems physically and emotionally detached or even removed from it. Her tiny reflection in the corner of the mirror that is dwarfed by the blue walls it hangs on just makes me wonder why she might be hiding from view. Does she see herself in the background of her life, watching as opposed to being in the fore front, living it? For me this picture seems almost out of place in this book. Yet it is one of my favourites.