The first time I felt a real connection with Nan Goldin's work was seeing Gilles and Gotscho Embracing, Paris 1992. The reason is that I now see the apparently artless, 'snapshots' are actually carefully designed and posed. There's a lot of work here, not just an opportunistic eye.
http://sexualityinart.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/gilles-dusein-and-gotscho-nan-goldin.jpg
The image depicts a tender moment; the lovers sit facing in opposite directions on a desk as on a lovers' bench. They lean in towards each other, embracing with shoulders, necks and chins, but not arms. Their faces are hidden. The muscular back of the left-hand figure is modeled by (at least) two light sources. The right-hand figure, facing camera, rests one arm on his thigh; there's a cup, complete with saucer and teaspoon, on the flat of his other hand. Behind them, partly obscured, are two watching figures. The lovers disregard them, confidently displaying their affection before an audience. It's beautiful.
But the watchers overlap, their faces are blurred and flat, as if they were cardboard cut-outs. The desk is set at an angle; there are books and papers at either end, framing the lovers. The forearm is twisted to reveal its tattoo. The teaspoon is perfectly placed - the cup and saucer would be incomplete, too white, without it. Now I wonder if the lovers are kissing or laughing.
Yet it is the artifice, the careful construction of this image, that endears it to me, that makes me take more than a glance, that will make me look more carefully at her work.
My son bought me a book of Nan Goldin's images and I'd only really glanced at it. Now I shall look.
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