Nan Goldin
Whitney’s Show at International Caribbean, Manila (1992/2020)
signed and numbered (on a label on the verso)
digital C-print in a black oak frame
15.2 x 20.3 cm. (6 x 8 in.)
Edition of 200
Whitney’s Show at International Caribbean, Manila (1992/2020)
signed and numbered (on a label on the verso)
digital C-print in a black oak frame
15.2 x 20.3 cm. (6 x 8 in.)
Edition of 200
Whitney’s Show at International Caribbean, Manila (1992/2020)
signed and numbered (on a label on the verso)
digital C-print in a black oak frame
15.2 x 20.3 cm. (6 x 8 in.)
Edition of 200
Whitney was a gorgeous queen I met in Manila in 1992. I went every night to the Monokel club where she worked, modeling, singing, dancing, sometimes stripping, sometimes entertaining customers. Her mother used to come from the Provinces to make her outfits. A lot of the queens in Manila were very close to their families and support them with the money they made from their shows. As everywhere sex workers had a very difficult life.
The older queens didn’t retire; they managed the bar and performed comedy routines on stage. In Manila they called me "mother," in Bangkok "sexy grandma.”
Nan Goldin’s nostalgic snapshots depict intimate moments of bohemian sex, transgression, beauty, spontaneity, and suffering. Her frames are marked by unflinching candor, rich hues, and a keen sense of empathy and lyricism. Goldin’s most famous work, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1985), is a slideshow that presents nearly 700 images from her life in New York during the 1970s and ’80s; throughout the reel, the artist lies in bed with her lover, drag queens kiss in bars, and the AIDS epidemic ravages the photographer’s community.
Recognized as a pioneer of diaristic hotography, Goldin has exhibited at the Louvre, the MoMA and Tate Modern, among other prestigious institutions.