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Scopophilia, or, “love of looking,” is Nan Goldin’s first New York exhibition since 2007. Photographs from Goldin’s career are paired, often seamlessly, with photographs Goldin took of paintings and sculpture inside the Louvre museum. 

In Scopophilia, the aesthetic juxtapositions poignantly draw the photographic figure into a ubiquitous sea of painterly representations of the sensual body. Goldin adoringly finds these moments in the paintings and sculptures the way she relates with the people in her life. All images are enthralled to convene, and converse as lovers respectfully undressing each other. The juxtapositions are accessible to even the uncommon viewer--one unfamiliar with Goldin’s photographs and arrive at a key that unlocks functions of the human spirit--looking into each other and ourselves, sharing fluids and experiencing love. 

Nan Goldin repurposes her photographs perhaps more than any other contemporary photographer. Her bodies of work are not solid; they are bodies in the same way bodies function within her work--temporary, amorphous and growing. It would be easy to criticize Goldin for re-using her images one too many times, and for having the audacity to position her oeuvre among the likes of the embalmed paintings of the Louvre. The 26 minute long slide presentation is overlaid with piano and harp interludes that invoke water. Spurts of presumptuous operatic verses are reminiscent of PBS specials on Renaissance masters, as Nan’s commentary, in a washed-up voice notes,

“My head thrown back, I let my gaze dwell on the ceiling. I underwent the proufoundest experience of ecstacy I had ever encountered. I had obtained a supreme degree of sensibility where the divine intimations of art merged with the impassioned sensuality of emotion. Between them and me, telepathic exchanges. Divination.” 

Yet this audacity is one of the work’s many strong points. Goldin’s career photographs maintain their vulnerability, reframing the imaged paintings in contemporary ecstasy. Steadfastly pursuing avenues of juxtaposition with works that function independently as personal documentary is an art in itself. It is rare to see an artist construct such radical juxtapositions so seamlessly; I could actually locate new life in her iconic photographs. 

Perhaps the conglomeration of imagery works so well for me because I grew up looking at Nan Goldin. In my formative years, her work cycled through my head as my own vernacular of emotions. Still today, thirteen years after I first stumbled upon Couples and Loneliness at fifteen in a Borders in Birmingham, Michigan, the tender, tenuous, painful and liberated are often transcoded in my mind's eye through a Nan Goldin filter. I was thrilled to find these characters had snuck away from their static place in the photographic memory as a set of ephemeral, risky lives, and are now residing timelessly among nymphs and Ophelias. It was as though they had somehow made it out unscathed after all.

Scopophilia is on view at Matthew Marks Gallery, 522 West 22nd Street (between 10th and 11th avenues), until December 23rd. 

Images © Nan Goldin, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery

Located on the Caribbean coast of the Panama Canal, Coco Solo is a marginalized community surrounded by the shipping industry and a former US Naval base. Last year a few intrepid photographers, including Rose Cromwell and Lorena Endara, founded an organization designed to "promote critical thinking skills,  self-expression through the exchanges of ideas." The workshops offered range from participatory photography exercises to urban gardening classes to sex education. Take a moment to check out this great organization: cambiocreativo.org

Vernacular images have always been a source of inspiration. I am a great admirer and collector of these images.

Currently, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University (Durham, NC) houses the exhibition entitled, Becoming: Photographs from the Wedge Collection on view through January 8, 2012. In this incredible collection of important imagery, the vernacular photos shine. If you find yourself in or near Durham, NC, make time to see this stunner before it leaves the Nasher. You can read more about this exhibition here.

As we approach the end of 2011, I find myself in the usual reflective state that this time of year often provokes. Recently, I found a pair of photos that I purchased a few years ago while living in Houston. The pair struck me with how succinctly it articulates my experiences of the past year. I hope these images speak to you as well.

Debuting this Thursday night at Pace MacGill is a show of new, unseen, large-scale color work by famed portraitist, Judith Joy Ross. This is the 1st time she has worked in 8x10 color and with mural-size prints. Decide for yourself how her intimate, felt work changes in its new form. One of the topics she is photographing continues to be protest. Rather than the local Pennsylvania anti-war protesters she photographed in her small, accessible booklet, "Protest The War", the subjects are environmental activists, who are speaking out about the dangerous practice of fracking to drill for natural gas in her area.

From the press release: "Although Ross's images record current events, they are not photojournalistic; and while her subjects may possess distinct political and ecological views, the pictures are not dogmatic.  Rather, they are quiet meditations on the potentially disastrous consequences of environmental interaction, proposing a meaningful re-evaluation of our relationship with the earth and humanity at large." The second series presented is "Reading to Dogs," a group of pictures that explores "the unique bonds formed between humans and animals.  Reading to dogs, Bethlehem Area Public Library, Bethlehem, PA, 2011, for example, subtly observes a nationwide program that encourages the uninhibited development of children’s literacy skills by reading to registered therapy dogs and their handlers."

Judith Joy Ross: The Devil Today and Reading to Dogs, on view December 8, 2011 through January 28, 2012, opening reception this Thursday, December 8 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm

www.pacemacgill.com

The 17th annual CENTER Awards provide applicants with a prestigious photographic international awards program. The prize packages are designed to bring exposure to worthy photographers via exhibitions, publication, and career advancement. Often judges will show interest in work that is not selected for the awards but that may be relevant for other purposes. To facilitate a relationship, CENTER provides contact information of all photographers who have advanced to the final rounds of judging. No work is eliminated by pre-screening. All contestants stand to benefit from the submission process by having their work seen by the judges including representatives from TIME, Newsweek, Rizzoli Publications, the Getty Museum and the Victoria Albert Museum.

For more check out: http://www.visitcenter.org/competitions