Goldin Snapshots

The article introduces the artistic photos shot by Nan Goldin. "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" was one of the masterpieces during the changing period of visual arts. It was originally showed to small crowd in lower Manhattan spread through words of mouth, people started to aware of her name and eventually became a masterpiece among Goldin's art work.

Goldin embraced an element of religious and pathos in the art work. Snapshots usually are imperfect pictures which jot down random daily moments. Differ from most plain snapshots, her pictures are famous for the empathic and evocable, full of emotion and retrospect. Since there portraits are image of herself, her friends and lovers, audience are able to see Goldin's life through her eyes, as if audience can step a foot inside and peak at her social network. Not only Goldin can show people about the life she had, but also as an artistic angle to see to her world.

Most of Goldin's pictures look like art to me. For instance, Ava twirling, NYC, 2007 also is a great art work. The picture simply captured the static moment of a little girl dancing; her pure white dress and hair merged as a waving motion in the air. The blurriness looks as if a fading memory. I believe the moment was a good memory of the little girl, depicting a celebration of the golden childhood.

In opposition to happiness, Goldin did a great job in depicting sorrow too. If I have only seen a picture of smoky clouds and street lamps, I would not have understood the meaning behind. Only with a title The sky on the twilight of Philippine's death, sky became grey; life was disheartened. In contrast with the street lights, street lights seemed positively therapeutic and healing.

I personally like C.Z. and Max on the Beach, 1976. It attracts my attention. The couple was lying on the beach with comics and gadgets on the mat. I can imagine the girl is complaining about something and the man besides frowned at her and seemed care about what the girl said. The picture seems like telling me an interesting story of the couple.