From 10 a.m. ET today, you can own a piece of history: Nan Goldin is selling two prints from her archive for just $250. The photographs will go on sale via the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, which supports queer art and artists, with proceeds benefiting the museum, The Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and The Trans Income Project. They’ll be available for purchase until 5 p.m. on June 26.
The images are arresting and gorgeous, hallmarks of Goldin’s intimate photography. Since picking up a camera in the 1970s, she has turned its lens on her friends and community, making heroes and dreamgirls of lovers, drag queens, artists, and rebels through a compassionate, revealing eye.
The two images she’s chosen for this sale highlight the breadth of her work: Jimmy Paulette at Wigstock, from 1991, shows the hair stylist Jimmy Paul in drag at the famous drag festival in New York. “It is nice to be a part of Nan’s work and to be with my friends—very nice memories,” he told me several years ago about another image of him (and there are many instances of Jimmy Paulette in Goldin’s oeuvre).
The other image, Thora with teddy bear (2020) is of Thora Siemsen, the writer and dear friend of Goldin’s. (She’s also a dear friend of mine and of this magazine’s, writing our cover profile of newly minted It girl Enza Khoury). “She became, through those pictures, more in touch with herself and found her beauty even more,” Goldin says of photographing Siemsen. “And that’s what I like to do for my people and show them how beautiful they are.”
In an official statement about the print sale, Goldin wrote, “Hundreds of anti-trans bills are threatening trans people’s safety, stability, and health. Transphobia has long plagued legislation and culture, and this print sale centers the needs of trans people, raising funds for organizations directly working with, responding to, and supporting them.” Here, Goldin discusses her latest of many print sales, which she uses as fundraising efforts for queer and trans charities and for the people of Gaza, and how she tries to make change in such a difficult time.
You can purchase the prints here.
Steff Yotka: I want to start with the obvious question, which is why was it important for you to do this sale now?
Nan Goldin: There’s a war on against trans people and it’s never been worse. It has been heightened by a thousand percent, and it’s very dangerous for trans people now. When I first decided to do [a print sale to benefit trans charities], it was at the same time that I did the sale for Gaza, for Sulala Animal Rescue, and things in the trans community were not quite as bad as they are now. But now trans people are in the crosshairs of this insanity. Gaza is my major obsession, my major focus, and then this is my other major focus, trans rights. It always has been, but we’ve never been in a situation like this. It’s like all the progress has been dialed way back.
It’s incredibly frightening to see that progress undone so quickly.
There are 800 different bills in county, state, and federal legislatures against trans people. 800 bills. And now there’s a tip line from the FBI to denounce doctors who are doing any kind of trans care.
How do you try to stay optimistic in a time like this, or provide support to your trans friends?
Optimism is not a word in my language. I am hardly optimistic. I’m one of the most pessimistic people anybody knows. I’m like a dark cloud. You’re inviting me to a dinner party and I’m in the corner talking politics with the last person who will listen to me! I’m not optimistic. I’m terrified of AI. I’m terrified about Gaza. I’m terrified about Trump. I’m just terrified. But I never learned to keep my mouth shut. That’s the way I am.
That’s a good thing.
I guess.
How did you choose the two images to sell?
Well, I wanted to have something very public, performative, like Jimmy Paulette at Wigstock, and then something personal, more about trans people living their private lives. One is from the ’90s and one more recent. Different worlds, different times.
Has your relationship to making pictures changed between the time that you took those two images?
Yeah, I don’t take pictures anymore, very rarely, just the animals, and trees, and the sky. I specifically picked up the camera again to play with Thora when she was living with me. I hadn’t made portraits in years at that time, and it was part of the intimacy of living together.
How did you and Thora meet?
She did an interview with me. She came and interviewed me and ended up moving in together during COVID. She was my COVID partner. We lived through all of that together. We were locked up together and actually, in spite of how horrible it was for the world, we had a great time watching movies together and being together. The picture I chose is from that period.
What drew you to her as a person?
Her sense of humor, her exquisite intelligence, and really incredible, incredible memory. Her take on things is right up my alley. There’s a lot of symbiosis between us. We used to call it a romantic friendship, it was this kind of level of friendship that most people don’t live.
Do you feel now, and did you feel at the time, that similar kinship with Jimmy?
No, it’s very different. I was never living with Jimmy. I knew him for some years before that. He was part of the whole crowd of crazy queens I was hanging out with. And he’s a brilliant hairdresser. That’s how I first came to know him, cutting hair. He loved to dress up and he worshiped Chrysis, the trans figure that had a big effect on a lot of people.
Do you see your work as political?
I’m an artist who’s political, but I don’t make political art. My first pictures in ’72 were trans people I was living with who had no visibility whatsoever at the time. I think I’ve always used my camera to show how beautiful my friends are. That’s the basis of my work, but it becomes political in relation to a normative society. Because I’m forefronting these people, especially in the ’70s when it was illegal to be trans, my work became political.
How did you choose the organizations for this sale and how do you stay informed about different grassroots funds or communities that people can donate to?
I’m connected to various groups engaged in direct action regarding Gaza, Trans Rights, and ICE, it’s through them that I find where I want to give. Also Instagram. That’s where I connected with Sulala Animal Rescue. Thora has introduced me to different fundraisers, and she is fundraising for Gaza also. I previously did a fundraiser with Pictures for Purpose for Sulala Animal Rescue in Gaza. They were great to work with, but PFP wasn’t available to do another sale. My gallery found people at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art who were eager to do it. They’re great, so easy to work with.
I know you said you’re not optimistic, but you’re still out there fighting the good fight. Do you have any words of encouragement for young people who feel powerless in situations like this?
I feel powerless too. It was so much at once—and that was Trump’s plan. … It’s very scary and we need to take it seriously, how bad it is. Fascism has come to America.
We’re trying to navigate our way through and find where we can be safe and what we can do to help other people. I want to tell young people: Keep breathing—and put their bodies on the line. I used to say, “The more of us there are, the more of us there are.” And it’s true. If all those people, for instance, who had signed the Art Forum letter, like 6,000 names are on it, if they all continued to speak out, it would be a lot less scary. I suffered pushback [from signing that letter] but it’s more important to me to be on the right side of history than to get intimated or to make my personal security my priority. It’s scary and threatening and not everyone can afford it, really.
I’m very grateful that you have always spoken about what matters. I think it’s really important for artists and young people to see a positive model of fundraising and support.
I’m out in the streets, too. Lots of people are out in the streets and they have to stay out there in spite of the brutality that’s coming. We have to keep fighting.