Nan Goldin Launches Instagram Account Despite Previous Criticism

Nan Goldin, known for her brutally honest and autobiographical photography that prefigured social media aesthetics, has opened a personal Instagram account despite previously expressing skepticism about social platforms. The account launched with a 1992 image titled 'Joey and Andres in Hotel, Askanischer Hof, Berlin' and currently features about twenty posts, including self-portraits from 1977 (as a dominatrix in Boston) and a recent one at her solo exhibition at Triennale di Milano, where her masterpiece 'The Ballad of Sexual Dependency' was shown for the first time in Italy. Other posts include portraits of the late artist Kathleen White, a friend who died in 2014. Goldin had told the New York Times last year, 'I'm not responsible for how social media is made, right? Tell me I'm not.' The article compares her approach to other artists on Instagram, such as Maurizio Cattelan, who uses it as an extension of his research, and Cindy Sherman, who opened her previously private account last summer to post digitally manipulated selfies using Facetune. The author questions whether Goldin's characteristic sincerity can resist the narcissistic and curated nature of Instagram timelines.