Object number2007.21

Naomi and Colette gossiping, Boston

Date1973

Artist Nan Goldin (American, 1953-)

CultureAmerican

MediumGelatin silver print, printed later

EditionEdition 2 of 18

DimensionsImage: 12 7/8 x 19 1/4 in. (32.7 x 48.9 cm)
Sheet: 15 3/4 x 20 in. (40 x 50.8 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, Friends of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Fund, in honor of Mark Lerner, class of 1974

On View

Not on view

Period20th c

Classification(s)

SignedOn verso, signed lower right in pencil: Nan Goldin

InscribedOn verso, by artist, lower right in pencil: Naomi and Colette gossiping, Boston. 1972. [signature] # 2/18

BibliographyLombino, Mary-Kay. Shape of Light: Defining Photographs from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. Poughkeepsie, NY: Vassar College, 2019, p. 80 ProvenancePurchased from Matthew Marks Gallery

Vassar Exhibitions

Naked City: Photographs from Vassar College's Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

Care Everywhere: Photography and Print as a Lens on Care

Facebook: Images of People in Photographs from the Collection

Recent Acquisitions: Works on Paper

Shape of Light: Defining Photographs from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center

Exhibition HistoryNaked City: Photographs from Vassar College’s Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Tampa, Florida, Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Tampa, FL, November 18, 2010 - January 29, 2011; Recent Acquisitions: Works on Paper, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, January 18 - March 30, 2013; Shape of Light: Defining Photographs from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, September 20 - December 15, 2019

Label TextIn her memoir and elegy to photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids (2010), iconic rockstar Patti Smith detailed their time growing up, while taking care of each other, as young adults in 1970s New York City: “We promised that we’d never leave one another again, until we both knew we were ready to stand on our own. And this vow, through everything we were yet to go through, we kept.” Smith and Mapplethorpe would take turns working odd jobs so that the other could focus on creating art. The role of provider was determined by who was able to work and needed less time to create at a given moment, regardless of gender. What this picture doesn’t show is the person behind the camera: artist, photographer, and recently retired Vassar professor Judy Linn. In taking great care to photograph candid moments between her friends Patti and Robert, Linn captures the intimacy and closeness of their friendship, which Just Kids details so well. Photographer Nan Goldin is similarly able to capture a quiet intimacy between two subjects. She catches her friends Naomi and Colette in the midst of what looks like gossiping. In the 1970s, Goldin regularly photographed her friends at The Other Side, a drag bar in Boston, in which Goldin describes “coming to life” during her early adulthood. Goldin was completely committed to photographing her friends, and it became her whole world: “Part of my worship of them involved photographing them. I wanted to pay homage, to show them how beautiful they were…I accepted them as they saw themselves; I had no desire to unmask them with my camera.”

DescriptionBlack and white image of two drag queens, Naomi and Colette, in the interior of The Other Side, an LGBTQ club in Boston. On the left is a woman with short curled blond hair wearing a tight light colored dress. She stands looking down at herself with her hands on her hips. Facing next to her and in the middle of speaking is a woman with dark, shoulder length curled hair wearing a tight dark colored dress with a plunging neckline.

Terms

Boston

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu