Nan Goldin: Diving for Pearls - by Glenn O'Brien (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"Getting a good picture is like diving for pearls. You take a thousand pictures to get a good one." -Nan Goldin

In her newest work, Nan Goldin merges her deep admiration for the artworks of the past with a lifelong dedication to her most immediate circle of friends. Invited by the Louvre, she photographed artworks of her choice at the museum and, guided by aesthetic and associative considerations, connected them to earlier photographs of her friends and lovers. In this way she not only draws inspiration from the rich sources of art history but revisits her own oeuvre of the last 40 years. The striking similarities between the two different pictorial worlds exert an intense dynamic on the viewer. The series, which yielded over 400 photographs, was shown for the first time in its full scope at the Kestnergesellschaft in Hannover, Germany. For this occasion, Diving for Pearls was conceived as an independent artist book which, alongside Goldin's newest work "Saints," contains a selection of photographs that have never been published before.
Nan Goldin was born in Washington, DC, in 1953 and is one of the most eminent female photographers of our times. She studied at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Since 1982 she has visited and worked in Berlin on a regular basis. She received a Hasselblad Photography Award in 2007. Goldin lives in Berlin, New York and Paris.

Review Quotes

Goldin's more recent pictures focus on light and the beauty of it, she says, and often depict other works of art...in Diving for Pearls, a book released in the U.S. last October, she paired these with her portrait shots (both past and present), highlighting similarities in color and composition--a comparison that's surprising, perhaps, to the viewer but not so to Goldin, who views her subjects with a reverent, nonjudgmental eye, even when exposing their imperfections.--Molly Langmuir "Elle Magazine"

Goldin's photographs leave their labor largely invisible, enacting a kind of magic that belies the mechanics of their making.--Michael Miller "Bookforum"

The magic is in the editing: Spreads reveal life imitating art, vibrancy against death, blurry and streaked negatives, and other happy accidents. Together they reflect Goldin's uncanny eye for imperfect beauty.--Jack Crager "American Photo"

The photographer's latest monograph is dedicated to previously unseen work for her 40-year career, mostly focusing on Goldin's mistakes and photographic accidents, such as double (or triple) exposures and intuitive portraits of her friends and lovers--Julien Sauvalle "OUT Magazine"

This hauntingly intimate book struck me as an exploration of the ignored beauty that lies in the most well-lit corners of reality ... Diving for Pearls translates as a tender hug in the midst of a thunderstorm.--James Linacre "Gayletter"