Gagosian Gallery displays Nan Goldin's Scopophilia
ROME - This is the notorious photographer's first major exhibition in Rome.
"Scopophilia" is a Greek word which means "love of looking", but also refers to the erotic pleasure derived from gazing at images of the body.
Her exhibition is a slide-show of photographic series, started four years ago, when she received private access to the Louvre Museum, each Tuesday. Taking advantage of this opportunity, she photographed freely throughout the museum's renowned collections of painting and sculpture.
There are many of Goldin's own photographs that she made in comparison with Louvre imagery, among which a lot have never been exhibited before.
Alain Mahé composed a melancholy classical soundtrack for piano, cello and voice which combines harmoniously with Goldin's mythological figures such as Narcissus, Tiresias, and Cupid and Psyche.
Nan Goldin was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1953. Her work has been the subject of two major touring retrospectives, “I’ll be Your Mirror” at Whitney Museum of American Art and “Le Feu Follet” at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Goldin was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 2006 with the rank of Commandeur and received the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in 2007.
In 2012 The MacDowell Colony awarded Goldin the Edward MacDowell Medal. Goldin lives and works in New York, Berlin, and Paris.
