Diving for Pearls

In her latest book, Diving for Pearls, Nan Goldin presents us with almost exclusively new, unpublished work. We are invited to contemplate the sense of magic and surprising abstractness exuding from unintentional photographic mistakes made with an analogue camera, such as double and triple exposures, or clip marks on the negatives. Following a loose narrative, we witness Goldin’s visceral intuitive style, driven by emotions reaching deep down in all of us. The book includes a new muse in Venice, cityscapes and animals, self-portraits, Venitian interiors, mirrors and gravestones. A true token of Goldin’s lifelong dedication to her friends is deeply portrayed by her pairing of their portraits with paintings of saints that she took in museums. The striking similarities between the contemporary and the archetypical verve of past beauty exert an intense dynamic on the viewer. Diving for Pearls was conceived as an independent artist book on the occasion of Goldin’s exhibition at Hannover’s Kestner Gesellschaft.