Nan Goldin, Guido Floating, Levanzo, Sicily, 1999.
Everything is universal. I am very much aware of that. —Ruth Bernhard
Despite emerging from extremely diverse times and contexts, the photographers Ruth Bernhard, Francesca Woodman and Nan Goldin share the common trait of having had both exceptional oeuvres and exceptional lives, heavily influenced by the evolving scenes of their native New York. In our Heatwave sale, closing on 30th July 2020, four works by the artists come to the fore: Ruth Bernhard’s Lifesavers and Two Leaves, Hollywood, California; Francesca Woodman’s Horizontale, Providence, Rhode Island; and Nan Goldin’s Guido Floating, Levanzo, Sicily.
Ruth Bernhard, Two Leaves, 1952.
One of the foremost photographers working today, Nan Goldin has, over the course of her career, marked a profound impact on an entire generation of creatives. Although her images reflect the narrow realities of her close entourage—she photographed friends on nights out, during the day, through intimate moments as well as mundane instants—they furthermore encapsulate the specificities of a time and place that are known to all, namely the dynamism of creative groups in New York’s late 1980s, and the raging tragedies deriving from the AIDS crisis. Grasping the urgencies of her time on camera, Goldin is equally renowned for having allowed honesty, tenderness, and intimacy to seep through her compositions, emphasizing the beauty and vulnerability of human encounters as well as the human form itself. Guido Floating, Levanzo, Sicily demonstrates this very fascination, as the eponymous Guido—a long-term collaborator and friend—is immersed in water, letting the viewer witness a glimpse of tranquillity and isolation; a moment of total self-absorption. Like a visual diary, Goldin’s photographs recount the depths of her friends’ inner lives.
Ruth Bernhard, Lifesavers, 1930.
Inspired by “the little things that nobody observes,” Ruth Bernhard composed an impressive body of photographic work over the course of almost eight decades that explored the realms of nature and the constructed, at a time when the medium was mostly utilized to achieve realistic and purely representational images (Ruth Bernhard, quoted in 20th century photographers: interviews on the craft, purpose, and the passion of photography . Burlington, MA : Focal Press. 2015). The two works presented in Heatwave, Lifesavers and Two Leaves, Hollywood, California, are beautiful, thought-provoking examples of Bernhard’s minimalist opus. Laden with a strong poetic feel, the two compositions appear to transcend the mere portrayal of their respective subject matter—two twining leaves and vertically balanced ringed-shaped candy—and embody instead the universality of tangible, physical things. “Everything is universal,” she once said. “I am very much aware of that” (Ruth Bernhard, quoted in 20th century photographers: interviews on the craft, purpose, and the passion of photography. Burlington, MA : Focal Press. 2015).
Francesca Woodman, Horizontale, Providence, Rhode Island, 1976.
A few decades after Bernhard had begun using a camera, the artist Francesca Woodman commenced her own photographic career, which would tragically come to an end in 1981, when she took her own life at the age of 22. For almost eight years, Woodman created an extraordinary body of work exploring gender, selfhood and the body in relation to its surroundings. Best known for photographing herself in nebulous environments and enigmatic poses, she posthumously became a trailblazing force in the photographic realm, setting a precedent for the increasing presence of identity politics within the medium. The present work, Horizontale, Providence, Rhode Island, depicts her bare legs tightly bound up by transparent tape, with the whimsical presence of a thick glove in place of underwear. Idiosyncratic features dominate the image: slow exposures, blurred movement, shadows and reflections—all coming together in an experimental black-and-white composition. At once staged and deeply intimate, Woodman’s works materialize the complex and paradoxical elements of female identity.
Immortalizing the intersection between their tangible environments and their photographic endeavors, Bernhard, Woodman and Goldin have respectively graced their audience with hints of their own lives. By focusing intently on staged or unwitting scenes, blurring out all but their focal subject matters, they have furthermore achieved a poetic aesthetic of seclusion that transcends time and context.