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Nan Goldin<br />
Nan one month after being battered<br />
The American photographer Nan Goldin’s work is about sex, drugs and violence. Her unflinching images are<br />
inspired by her own life and the lives of her friends.<br />
Her self-portrait of 1984 shows the face of the artist, Nan Goldin, disfigured by a serious attack one<br />
month previously. The skin and one of her eyes are still discoloured. She looks at the camera with reproach.<br />
Who is she looking at? Us? The lover who battered her with his fists? Herself?<br />
Her face bears the scars of an intimate relationship that flipped from closest intimacy, togetherness<br />
and love into disdain and ignorance, lack of respect and violence. <strong>Paradise</strong> is lost again, it has turned into<br />
relationship hell. Goldin’s photograph confronts us with direct evidence of physical violence. It presents a<br />
mirror-image of the other self, revealing processes that usually remain hidden. We realize with consternation<br />
what we are capable of inflicting on ourselves – either by beating someone up, or by challenging someone to<br />
beat us up. Ultimately, hell is us.<br />
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