Nan Goldin
Born 1953, Washington, D.C.
1974 Imageworks, Cambridge, Massachusetts
1977 BFA School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University, Boston
Selected museum exhibitions: Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2017); Museum of Modern Art (2016); Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro (2012); Hasselblad Center, Göteborg, Sweden (2007); Palmer Museum of Art, University Park, Pennsylvania (2005); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2001); Whitney Museum of American Art (1996); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1994); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1993); Museum Folkwang, Essen (1991); Aperture Foundation, New York (1986); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1985)
Selected honors: Edward MacDowell Medal (2012); Hasselblad Award for Photography (2007); Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France (2006); Art Matters, Inc. Award (1990); Wilhelmina Jackson Fellowship (1977)
Selected public collections: Art Institute of Chicago; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Modern Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Tate Gallery, London; Whitney Museum of American Art
Photographing her friends and herself, Nan Goldin’s work constitutes a visual diary based on directness and intimacy. According to the artist: “I photograph directly from my life. These pictures come out of relationships, not observation.” This is clearly the case in the present photograph, which she took at the Mudd Club, a nightclub that was central to the downtown scene in New York from 1978 through 1983. Cookie, to the left, is Cookie Mueller, an actress, writer, and a close friend of Goldin, who would photograph her throughout her life.