I have always felt an incredibly deep connection to the GLBT community. I self-identify as queer, but I think it goes deeper than just belonging. Through the course of my feminist awakening, my sexual enlightenment, and my growth into an adult, I sought to find an aural or visual experience that depicted the world as I feel it. It's hard to say whether the view or the world itself is broken, but it lies broken nonetheless. It's sharply hued and violent, but silent and subdued. It's where we play with fire and still drown.
And I found Nan Goldin, a photographer who grew up in Massachusetts and made a name for herself photographing herself and her friends, many of them gay, in front of the drug-addled backdrop of New York in the 1970s and 80s.
I feel disconnected from much of the art I experience on a regular basis, and some of the literature. But Nan's work touches me so much. I feel we are cut from the same cloth. I feel we live in the same world together. She has been one with the freaks. She captures the despondency that has so often permeated my life. Her photographs recognize the complexity of the juncture between gender, sex, and mortality.
And yet there is no desperation in what she shows us, sad as it all may seem. It is a reality created in the desire to love things, even if society tells us we are wrong. It is a reality where we all realize that we are going to die and as a result, all we can do is live.
Many of the subjects of Nan's original photographs died by the time she gained recognition for her work. They never knew their raw beauty was seen by thousands of people. They just lived their imperfect lives in a world that wasn't ready for them. They are pure. Their images are haunting.
These photographs always make me wonder: how do we ever really interact with one another? And how can we forgive ourselves for the mistakes we've made?
All of these works, of course, belong to Nan Goldin.
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