Interview: Nan Goldin | Food monthly | The Observer - The Diigo Meta page

• 21 Apr 08
  

  Benjamin Jörissen

  NanGoldin gaze

  • The most harrowing image shows her bloodied and broken face, one month after he nearly battered her to death in a Berlin hotel room. She needed major surgery and nearly lost the sight in her left eye; it was the end of the relationship.
  • 'She's looking at me in all the pictures. Here with complete love, here it's very sexy, here it's kind of ambivalent. That was a sad period. But she's always looking at me. She's as strong as anyone looking at the pictures. People feel that I'm narcissistic, voyeuristic or vicarious. Or they say I make the viewer vicarious. But I don't think so. I show my people in their full strength, staring back at you. They're not victimised by you. They're not objectified by you.'
  • Nan's friends always have control over the images that are seen in public.
  • That arm over the empty bed... It was the end of the relationship
  • 'I had thought I could stave off loss through photographing. But the pictures show me how much I've lost.'

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