Atelier Talk | The Edge of Mainstream, the Core of Subculture — New York in Nan Goldin’s Eye

Introduction

I'll be your mirror
Reflect what you are, in case you don't know
I'll be the wind the rain and the sunset
The light on your door to show that you're home...
— I'll Be Your Mirror, The Velvet Underground

Influenced by the social climate of New York in the 1970s and 1980s, American contemporary photographer Nan Goldin’s works capture people living amid the New Wave, hippie, punk, and queer cultures. In a series of photographs, Goldin documented her friends and the raw realities of the city—its bars, drag queens, same-sex and heterosexual couples, as well as her own private life. During the culturally diverse 1970s and 1980s, the direction of music and cultural movements evolved in tandem, with rock bands serving as a medium for countercultural expression. Living through that era, Goldin’s work was deeply influenced by its cultural elements. In many of her slide shows, she often used popular songs of the time as soundtracks. I’ll Be Your Mirror, a song from an album by The Velvet Underground, is one such example, serving as part of the soundtrack for her photographic series The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.

The Winsing Arts Foundation is honored to invite writer Pulp Chen, who once lived in New York, to give a lecture exploring the connections between Nan Goldin’s works and the culture of the 1970s and 1980s. In an era when the spirit of freedom was thriving, young people were widely dissatisfied with society and began fighting for their rights. This climate gave rise to numerous cultural movements and music scenes, such as The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, and Sonic Youth—well-known bands whose music was closely tied to the social and political issues of the time. Professor Chen will take the audience back to New York of that era to see, through Goldin’s work, a world that is raw and unvarnished.