Good afternoon, Wednesday. Getting over that hump, kids. Closing in on the weekend.
So there's lots of good photography shows in town (Diane Arbus, Danny Lyon, and Nan Goldin) and for a shuttergeek like me, it's kind of nirvana inducing. Not only have I spent a hot minute producing shoots, but it's also a visual media that I just adore. It speaks to me. Loudly.
And as creative child, I was completely obsessed with stills. I could not get enough of looking at photographs- from my dad's Nat Geo magazines to Time/Life books on world wars to Vogue magazine shoots with Helmut Newton, I just couldn't stop looking at pictures. Some of my earliest inspirations come from poring through everything I could find- books on punk in '76 to photo essays on the Stones to columns in Details or Interview showing all the fly people in New York kicking it at clubs. Those photos fueled my imagination in ways that are still inhabiting my mind today.
So when I thought about running over to the MOMA to see the Nan show, I couldn't help but think about the photo at the top of this post. THIS PHOTOGRAPH.
It's true I know now that Nan's boyfriend beat the crap out of her and was fodder for her work- for all the darkness, the addiction, the fucked up relationship. Nan Goldin is not really one for subtext- it's all right there in your face- raw and real and on the verge. But when I saw this photo in my teens, I really could not stop staring at it. I bought a postcard of it and literally stared at it for days on end. I related to the creepy isolation of it- the loneliness even though super intimate, the dark subversion. As an angsty teen living in the suburbs of Philadelphia, I wanted to be a fly on the wall of this seedy New York scene- it's the same reason so many of us were drawn to movies like "Kids"- we know what we're looking at is super messed up, but we can't help but be drawn to it for that very reason. Intriguing that. In fact, the whole series entitled The Ballad of Sexual Dependency chronicles New York from the late 70s to the 80s in a way that is disturbing, elegantly wasted, and deeply personal. Real deal shit. I can never look at those 700+ images enough of a New York I will never know, yet know deeply from my obsession with all of these images. As a younger woman, my very existence depended on gazing at her photos.
I'm sure you have some imagery of your own that's etched in your noggin for all time, but this image has stayed with me my whole life, and though I've never (thank goodness) been the victim of physical abuse, I've definitely gazed at a man while he smokes a cigarette, not knowing what the future would bring, or maybe, not even caring. To me, this image says so much without literally talking. I love it so. (Don't even get me started on Diane Arbus.) Without Nan, we would not have so many other great photographers whose work reflects a raw portraiture documenting the dark, weirdly glam side of life.
If you happen to be in New York, let me know if you want to go check out any of the great photo geek moments happening in town. Link to the Nan show here. I have to go see it. It's amazing how some things never leave you. And by things, I mean pictures. Cause that's what's up this visually stimulating Wednesday in the 718. Yours, in ballads of photographic dependency and back again. XO