NAN GOLDIN | SELF PORTRAIT

Private Collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist in 1996)

"The sequence of self-portraits is a sequel and necessary partner to the earlier Ballad and it rearticulates Goldin's project: to make work that connects with one's life, to replace the abstraction and distance of the document with an empathetic and frank confrontation of personal experience and emotions. Thus the tradition of the document—loaded since inception with moral intention but also with distanced stance—is different when the photographer is closely enmeshed with her subject."

(Elizabeth Sussman, "In/Of Her Time: Nan Goldin's Photographs," Nan Goldin: I'll Be Your Mirror, New York 1996, p. 37)