synthetic family

Nan Goldin. Picnic on the Esplande, Boston, USA, 1973.
This photograph, among the first Goldin made in colour, shows many of the features that made her one of the first and foremost exponents of the snapshot aesthetic. This Easter picnic by the river in Boston shows Goldin's 'family' at the time, one of the happiest periods in her life. She was living with a group of drag queens, her heroines, and had already amassed a huge body of black-and-white photographs of them. It shows her lifelong obession with social rituals an the pleasures of communal life. Over time she would lose many people in this group to AIDS and drug addiction.

Excerpt from the seriously wonderful Nan Goldin book Lindsay got me, thanks Lindsay, I think you're the best.