traits set to singer Eartha Kitt’s ‘‘Devil’s Play-
ground,’’ the series suggests a confrontation with
maturity and aging and incorporates more exterior
shots than featured in her earlier series, including
cityscapes and landscapes empty of people.
Her photographs are snapshot-like but techni-
cally sophisticated in composition, using strong
depth of field, mise-en-sce`ne-like mirrors and glis-
tening light fixtures. Consistent throughout her
oeuvre is the power of setting to express emotion-
ality, as she uses color to ascribe meaning to the
shabbiest apartment, a mirrored nightclub, or in her
more recent work, landscapes infused with trauma,
such as ‘‘Red Sky Outside my Window, NYC,
2000’’ from her seriesElements.Goldin uses photo-
graphy as a means of recording an individual’s
psychological state, emphasizing the medium’s abil-
ity to express more than the objective ‘‘truth.’’ Now
centered in Europe, she is still exploring relation-
ships in her recentHeart Beat, 2000–2001, with 228
slides which track five couples in domestic scenes.
In this series, the artist is more peripheral to the
relationships and desire that she depicts than in her
earlier work, where the boundaries between artist
and subject were blurred.
DanielleSchwartzSeealso:Araki, Nobuyoshi; Arbus, Diane; Clark,
Larry; Documentary Photography; History of Pho-
tography: the 1980s; Portraiture; Representation
and Gender; Sander, August; Sherman, Cindy; Ver-
nacular Photography
Biography
Born 12 September 1953, Washington, D.C. and raised in
Boston, Massachusetts. Attended New England Conser-
vatory of Art at night in 1972; studied with Henry Hor-
enstein. Earned BFA from Tufts University/School of
the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1977. Taught
at Harvard University, New Haven, Connecticut; did
photographic campaign for Matsuda; curated exhibition
for Artist’s Space. Brandeis Award in Photography,
1994; National Endowment of Arts Fellowship, 1991;
Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, 1991; DAAD,
Artists-in-Residence Program, Berlin, 1991; Mother
Jones Documentary Photography Award, 1991; Camera
Austria Prize for Contemporary Photography, Graz,
1989; Maine Photographic Workshop Book Award,
1987; Englehard Award, Boston School of the Museum
of Fine Arts Alumni Traveling Fellowship, Boston 1986.
Lives and works in Paris.
Selected Works
David at Grove Street, Boston, 1972
Picnic on the Esplanade, Boston, 1973
Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC, 1983
Nan One Month after Being Battered, NYC, 1984
Cookie and Vittorio’s Wedding: The Ring, NYC, 1986
Self-portrait with eyes turned inward, Boston, 1989
Gina at Bruce’s dinner party, NYC, 1991
At the bar: Toon, C, and So, Bangkok, 1992
Self-portrait on the train, Germany, 1992
‘Gotscho + Gilles. Paris, 1992–1993
All by Myself – Beautiful at Forty, 1953–1995 (slide show)
Joana and Aurele making out in my living room, NYC, 1999
Red sky from my window, NYC, 2000Selected Slide Shows
1979 Mudd Club, New York
1981 The Kitchen, New York
Artist’s Space, New York
White Columns, New York
1982 Club 57, New York
1983BoweryProject,CollaborationwithMaxBlagg,NewYork
TinPanAlley,NewYork
1984 C.E.P.A. Gallery, Buffalo
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
1985 Edinburgh 39thInternational Film Festival, Edinburgh
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
1986 Image and Sound Film Festival, The Hague, Netherlands
St. Marks Poetry Project, New York, New York
Berlin Film Festival, Berlin, Germany
‘‘The Real Big Picture,’’ (video installation) Queens
Museum, New York
1987 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
1987 Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithso-
nian Institution, Washington, DC
Les Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France
1988 Fotofest, Rice MediaCenter, Houston, Texas
Ferguson Theater, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago,
Illinois
Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
1989 ICA Theatre, London, England
Warm Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Savoy Theatre, Helsinki, Finland
1990 SF Camerawork, San Francisco, California
1991 Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York
1992 Museum des 20.Jahrhunderts, Vienna, Austria
1993 Fotografiska Museet, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Fundacio ‘‘La Caixa,’’ Barcelona, Spain
Parco Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1994 The Kitchen, New York, New York
International Center of Photography, New York.
New York
1995 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Fran-
cisco, California
Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland
1996 Tate Gallery, London, England
Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OhioSelected Individual Exhibitions
1973 Project, Inc. Cambridge, Massachusetts
1977 Hudson Gallery (with David Armstrong), Boston,
MassachusettsGOLDIN, NAN