The Devil's Playground

by Nan Goldin, Guido Costa, Enrique Juncosa

THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND is the most significant book published to date on Nan Goldin (b. 1953), one of the most prominent and influential contemporary photographers. It contains Goldin's latest works alongside earlier classics, including images from new series such as ELEMENTS, 57 DAYS, STILL ON EARTH, and FROM HERE TO MATERNITY, many of which are published here for the first time. This book is an intimate and compelling photographic portrait, telling personal stories of relationships and identity while chronicling different eras and the passage of time. Goldin's photographic sequences are interspersed with texts, poems, and lyrics by prominent writers.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction, Literature, Love, Art and Photography

504 pages, Paperback

First published November 18, 2003

About the author

Nan Goldin is an American photographer known for her deeply personal and candid portraiture. Goldin’s intimate images act as a visual autobiography documenting herself and those closest to her, especially in the LGBTQ community and the heroin-addicted subculture. Her opus The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1980–1986) is a 40-minute slideshow of 700 photographs set to music that chronicled her life in New York during the 1980s. The Ballad was first exhibited at the 1985 Whitney Biennial, and was made into a photobook the following year. “For me it is not a detachment to take a picture. It's a way of touching somebody—it's a caress,” she said of the medium. “I think that you can actually give people access to their own soul.”

Born Nancy Goldin on September 12, 1953 in Washington, D.C., the artist began taking photographs as a teenager to cherish her relationships with those she photographed, as well as a political tool to inform the public of issues that were important to her. Influenced both by the fashion photography of Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin she saw in magazines, as well as the revelatory portraits of Diane Arbus and August Sander, Goldin captured herself and her friends at their most vulnerable moments, as seen in her seminal photobook Nan Goldin: I’ll Be Your Mirror (1996). In 2018, she collaborated with the clothing brand Supreme by including three of her photographs, Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a taxi, NYC (1991), Kim in Rhinestones, Paris (1991), and Nan as a dominatrix, Cambridge, MA (1978) on their spring/summer collection.

The artist currently lives and works between New York, NY, and Paris, France. Today, Goldin’s works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, among others.

Reviews

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novelistic in its structure and ambitions. Would be more powerful at half the length, though.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Content is 5 stars but the layout knocks a star off. Printing numerous full page color photographs across the gutter really distracts.

[Aurora Domeniconi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il sublime nel taglio fotografico di Goldin sulla quotidianità. Una immersione totale non sono CON ma anche DENTRO ai suoi soggetti.

Invidiabile, mirabile. Sembra di cambiare vita in ogni pagina.

[Teresa Coutinho · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite photographer ever

[Nyx · Rating 4 out of 5]

definición de voyeurismo lol

[Odette · Rating 4 out of 5]

ja, heel mooi en ook met Nick Cave is extra leuk

[Christopher Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I feel like this is sort-of cheating because this is actually a book of photography, but it's my FAVORITE book of photography, so... who cares. Nan Goldin's relationships with her subjects is amazing. These are such intimate, gorgeous photographs; they speak of so much trust between the two sides of the camera. Don't be scared by the price tag; this book is so very worth it.

[Mary]

This book was given to me by Beulah and Justin.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

dirty and gorgeous photographs

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best READ on an actual playground...

[Tiffani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nan Goldin is one of my favorite artist and this is a great collection of her work.