Nan Goldin - A photographic ballad
Graeme Williams - Photographic Conversations
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8,915 views Jan 14, 2023
THIS VIDEO: Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency transformed photography dramatically in the 80s. Her autobiographical record focusses on her own unorthodox life as well as that of her circle of friends. Since the publication of The Ballad it has served as an inspiration to many photographers to produce more personal and realistic work. It opened the way for a diaristic approach to photography.
ABOUT ME: The conversations focus on topics related to different aspects of photography including: art, documentary and photojournalism. The discussions explore the personal experiences of photographers and artists and how their work reflects both their internal and external landscape. During the past 30 years I have photographed in over 50 countries for magazines including National Geographic, Time, New York Times and Newsweek. I have held solo exhibitions in New York, London and Paris and my work is showcased in private and institutional art collections around the world.
WEBSITE: https://www.graemewilliams.co.za
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INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/williamsgraeme
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MUSIC: Mixxit-temptations-882
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====
2:33 / 11:44
Nan Goldin - A photographic ballad
Graeme Williams - Photographic Conversations
5.9K subscribers
Subscribe
340
Share
Download
Clip
Save
8,915 views Jan 14, 2023
THIS VIDEO: Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency transformed photography dramatically in the 80s. Her autobiographical record focusses on her own unorthodox life as well as that of her circle of friends. Since the publication of The Ballad it has served as an inspiration to many photographers to produce more personal and realistic work. It opened the way for a diaristic approach to photography.
ABOUT ME: The conversations focus on topics related to different aspects of photography including: art, documentary and photojournalism. The discussions explore the personal experiences of photographers and artists and how their work reflects both their internal and external landscape. During the past 30 years I have photographed in over 50 countries for magazines including National Geographic, Time, New York Times and Newsweek. I have held solo exhibitions in New York, London and Paris and my work is showcased in private and institutional art collections around the world.
WEBSITE: https://www.graemewilliams.co.za
FACEBOOK:
/ graemewilliamsphotographer
INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/williamsgraeme
1 on 1 MENTORING: https://graemewilliams.co.za/mentor-p...
MUSIC: Mixxit-temptations-882
Transcript
Follow along using the transcript.
Show transcript
Graeme Williams - Photographic Conversations
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21 Comments
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@sbai4319
1 year ago
Nan Goldins work and story inspires me to follow in that journalistic style.
1
Reply
@MoniqueBourgeois
1 year ago
I googled the city that she was born...Washington, D.C. Check your facts please.
Reply
2 replies
@nathanc3404
1 year ago
Thank you, really great selection of her work
1
Reply
Graeme Williams - Photographic Conversations
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1 reply
@johnkelly-pd3vq
1 year ago
Love this review, music choice superb
1
Reply
Graeme Williams - Photographic Conversations
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1 reply
@SilverAndSensor
1 year ago
Good work. Have seen a few of your videos. Hope you get to the magic 1000 subscribers soon from Scotland
1
Reply
Graeme Williams - Photographic Conversations
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1 reply
@sweetjane5033
1 year ago
Intense & necessity
1
Reply
@kiwicit0
1 year ago
I feel like I need more input to allow me to comment....so I'll watch "All the beauty and the bloodshed", then I'll come back.
Reply
Graeme Williams - Photographic Conversations
·
1 reply
@writerman242
1 year ago
Extraordinary I second a lot of what Jim said in his comment.
Reply
Graeme Williams - Photographic Conversations
·
1 reply
@carloscosta7618
1 year ago
Incredible video!
Reply
Graeme Williams - Photographic Conversations
·
1 reply
@sanwarzone
1 year ago
A really powerful presentation of the real world of Nan Goldin...moving and like playing with dynamite. Thanks for the take of a walk on the wild side of her life.
2
Reply
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1 reply
@jimphilpott902
1 year ago
Golden's work resembles a photojournalist in a war zone, which happens to be her own life. Taking us close to the action, she captures a world of desperate hope and pain. Diane Arbus and Francesca Woodman come to mind. We, in the politeness and denial of good people, would rather not know such a world exists. While I cannot argue that such individuals are more alive than the rest of us, I do see the challenge they bring to conventional living. She, on some level, has been dangerously alive
3
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1 reply
Transcript
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0:00
[Music]
0:00
okay
0:01
[Music]
0:06
and then Golden's Ballad of sexual
0:09
dependency transformed photography
0:11
dramatically in the 80s
0:13
some say that the impact that this work
0:15
made was comparable with the release of
0:17
Robert Franks the Americans in the 50s
0:21
her autobiographical record focuses on
0:24
her own unorthodox life as well as that
0:27
of a circle of friends which included
0:29
addicts Hustlers transvestites and
0:32
prostitutes
0:33
she redefined what photography could do
0:36
and what it could be by producing a
0:38
mirror of herself and the world
0:40
she wasn't an observer of her tribe of
0:43
societal Outsiders she lived the
0:46
experience fully and was often the
0:48
principal subject of her own photographs
0:51
she experienced the harshness of life
0:53
and her resilience was tested repeatedly
0:57
her beloved sister committed suicide
0:59
when she was 11 years old shortly after
1:02
she was seduced by an older man
she
1:05
became addicted to heroin and Coke she
1:07
worked as a go-go dancer and even for a
1:10
Time became a prostitute to pay the rent
1:13
she has been hospitalized due to the
1:15
beatings by a lover and she has
1:17
witnessed the death of many of her
1:18
friends due to AIDS and drugs
1:21
all of these experiences have shaped
1:23
both a path and her work
1:26
1:29
the way for a diuristic approach to
1:31
photography
1:32
it has become a genre all of its own
1:37
[Music]
1:47
in this time of cell phone photography
1:49
Instagram and Tick Tock we are living in
1:52
a world in which the superficial quality
1:54
of the style is commonplace and
1:56
Universal
1:58
even though nowadays the images are
2:00
mostly self-absorbed and
2:01
self-aggrandizing
2:04
although work is often provocative and
2:06
desperate golden manages to instill
2:09
tenderness and even hope into her images
2:16
[Music]
2:21
foreign
2:23
[Music]
2:28
was born Nancy golden the youngest of
2:31
four children to Jewish parents in
2:33
Lexington a middle-class suburb of
2:35
Boston
2:37
her father was an economist and a mother
2:39
a housewife
2:41
she was close to her sister Barbara who
2:43
from an early age rebelled against a
2:45
constriction of middle American
2:46
respectability
2:49
she taught man to hate Suburbia from a
2:51
very young age the Suffocation and the
2:54
double standards
2:55
she said don't let the neighbors know
2:58
was the family mantra
3:00
Baba refused to conform to her parents
3:02
conventions and they institutionalized
3:05
her again and again
3:07
at 19 she took her own life by lying on
3:10
the tracks in front of an oncoming
3:11
committee train Nan was 11 when it
3:14
happened
3:15
for a long time afterwards golden was
3:18
almost completely silent
3:20
she withdrew into herself and became
3:22
unmanageable she got thrown out of every
3:25
school that she went to
3:27
golden was shuttled between foster homes
3:30
until in her mid-teens she ended up at a
3:32
progressive school in Boston
3:34
one of the teachers gave her her first
3:36
camera and she began taking Polaroids of
3:39
herself and those around her
3:41
at 15 she had her first show in Boston
3:44
which featured a community of drag
3:46
queens with whom she was hanging out
3:49
after graduating from a Boston art
3:52
college she moved to New York and
3:53
started to build a family for herself
3:58
[Music]
4:04
oh
4:05
[Music]
4:08
friends and our lovers became a
4:10
photographic subject
she wrote that a
4:13
group of friends were bonded not by
4:15
Blood but by a similar morality
4:17
the need to live fully and for the
4:19
moment
4:21
at this time she discovered Larry
4:23
Clark's book Tulsa and it made a huge
4:25
impact it became the Benchmark for her
4:28
ballad work
4:30
in the 70s Clark produced a diuristic
4:33
record of the lives of a bunch of
4:35
wayward young people from his hometown
4:38
he later directed the controversial film
4:40
kids photographed with them using heroin
4:43
having sex and playing around with
4:45
handguns
4:47
for many critics at the time this work
4:49
seemed morally questionable but for
4:51
Golden it redrew the boundaries of what
4:53
was permissible as documentary subject
4:55
matter
4:57
golden wasn't technically proficient and
4:59
she would generally flash everything
5:02
because of this she developed an
5:04
unstructured snapshot Style
5:07
she landed up taking thousands of images
5:09
and many she rejected but the images
5:12
that work really work because they have
5:14
a raw intimacy that an outsider would
5:17
never be able to replicate
5:19
for observers The Experience can seem
5:22
voyeuristic because we are observing
5:24
from a position of safety the intimate
5:26
moments experienced by those Living
5:28
Dangerously on the edge of society
5:32
she wasn't calculating or acquisitional
5:34
in her approach to photographing her new
5:37
family for her it was a way of
5:39
connecting with people
5:41
she managed to bridge the gap between
5:43
Observer and participant and her work is
5:46
infused with tenderness
5:51
oh
6:00
all right
6:02
she is one of the few artists William
6:04
Burroughs might be another whose work
6:06
quality did not seem to have been
compromised by heroin use
6:10
in fact it probably added to the
6:12
unconstructed approach that she had to
6:14
her work
6:17
photography seemed to be a means for
6:18
Golden to hang on to life during her
6:20
harsh moments including her addictions
6:24
her epic series was originally devised
6:27
as a slideshow set to music to entertain
6:29
her friends
6:31
she included narration and songs by the
6:33
lack of Velvet Underground James Brown
6:35
and Nina Simone
6:38
the shows were held at love parties
6:40
Underground movie theaters and
6:42
performance spaces
6:44
golden organized a slideshow around a
6:46
few basic themes kissing nudity drug use
6:50
domestic violence and sex
6:52
the audience back then was mainly
6:54
comprised of her Wayward friends as well
6:57
as fellow struggling artists Hustlers
6:59
transvestites and other Outsiders
7:03
at some stage art critic Jay hobermann
7:06
contextualized the slideshow as a film
7:08
and after that it became a bit of an
7:10
underground phenomena
7:12
in 1985 it caused a big stir at the
7:15
Whitney biennial and a year later the
7:17
book was published
7:21
golden is by no means a one-hit wonder
7:24
she went on to produce powerful work
7:25
after the ballad
7:28
the selection that I've made for this
7:30
video includes many images from The
7:32
Ballad of sexual dependency but also
7:34
other strong images from later projects
7:39
The Ballad is a portrayal of a specific
7:41
time and place and it's really hard to
7:44
Eclipse something that is so raw and
7:46
intimate
7:48
success also is a way of removing the
7:50
edge that comes with the chaos of
7:52
survival
7:53
in a manner once you remove yourself
7:55
from the street the grit and
7:57
authenticity of the experience is lust
7:59
the work inevitably becomes more remote
8:01
and cerebral
8:05
golden said that this photograph of her
8:07
being badly beaten by a lover is the
8:09
hinge of the slideshow and of the book
8:12
it places her at the center of the drama
8:14
and shifts her from The Observer
8:16
position to that of a participant
8:19
very few photographers have managed to
8:21
hold this limbo State never mind
8:23
continuing to produce strong work over a
8:26
long period of time
8:29
Nan golden is now 69 years old and most
8:32
of her friends have died
8:34
but she still retains her edgy
8:36
rebellious streak recently she has taken
8:39
on big Pharma particularly the secular
8:42
family and their Oxycontin medication
8:46
oxy has enriched the family and
8:49
kick-started an avalanche of addiction
8:50
and death
8:52
in the U.S around 145 people are dying
8:55
every day from opioid overdoses
9:00
since the publication of Nan Golden's
9:02
The Ballad of sexual dependency over
9:04
three decades ago it has served as an
9:06
inspiration to many photographers to
9:09
produce more personal and realistic work
9:12
it Sparks memories and Views and
9:15
Nostalgia for an experience that they
9:17
never had
9:18
it feels like a drug-induced dream
9:21
filled with rage desire memory and loss
9:26
I hope this video provided some insight
9:28
into Nan golden and her work
9:31
please like And subscribe and join me
9:33
next time
cheers=====
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