Joey on my Roof, NYC, 1991

Nan Goldin   Master Artists

American photographer Nan Goldin was born in 1953 into a Jewish family in Washington DC. His childhood was deeply marked by the suicide of his sister Barbara at the age of 18, who threw herself under a train after having been interned several times in a psychiatric establishment. Realizing that traditional education and the family living environment did not suit her, Nan Goldin decided to run away from her family home at the age of 14 to take refuge in Boston.

Aged 15, the young photographer decided to take lessons at an alternative school called Satya Community School. In this school, Nan Goldin met two artists named David Armstrong and Suzanne Fletcher from whom she would draw inspiration. His passion for photography began at the age of 15, obsessed with reinventing himself and his models. At the beginning of the 1970s, Nan Goldin took refuge with drag queen friends whom she followed and photographed. Her training continued at the Boston School of Fine Arts where she learned new photography techniques: color photography. She will have a degree in visual arts there.

In 1978, Nan Goldin moved to New York 's underground scene where alcohol, drugs and prostitution reigned. In 1979, she stood out as a photographer: she projected a slideshow of 750 photos lasting 45 minutes, set to music, describing her life in New York's marginal cultures. This artistic work is known today as “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" which she continued until the end of the 1980s.

In the mid-1980s, AIDS appeared which affected many of the artist's friends, including her greatest friend Cookie Muller, whom Nan Goldin photographed until her death in 1989. A work called "The Cookie Portfolio" will retrace the life of her friend in 15 portraits taken from her youth to her death which she exhibited in 1991.

At the beginning of the 90s, the artist discovered the world of prostitution and transvestites in Southeast Asia during a trip. Following this discovery, the artist will release a book: “Tokyo Love". In 2004 the artist exhibited a work called “Sisters, saints, sybilles" at the Saint-Louis de la Salpetrière chapel. It was also exhibited at MoMA, at the Center Pompidou. She now lives between London and Paris.