Jim GoldbergRich and Poor / Open See
May 8 – June 20, 2010
"We all say things that would sound frightfully honest if condensed and frozen within the context of a still image." (Jim Goldberg)
Jim Goldberg’s photo documentary project Rich and Poor belongs today to the most outstanding milestones of contemporary photography history. The Forum für Fotografie presents a selection from this groundbreaking series, which was created between 1977 and 1985, and was shown for the first time in 1984 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the exhibition Three Americans.
Rich and Poor is a powerful glimpse of America in the ’80s, with its myths, clichés, hopes, and wishful thinking. It is a glimpse of poor and rich—of the self-image and pride of the elite and of the fears and disappointing expectations of the underclass; a look as well at the exemplary-seeming lifestyles of the older generation and the myths and hopes of the younger generation. The eminently personal character of this documentary-narrative photo project results from Goldberg’s experimental, media-crossing interaction with photography, which would become the hallmark for his entire artistic oeuvre.
In the framework of their private living spaces, the people portrayed in the photographs were invited to actively participate in the creating of the image and to influence the composition. Furthermore they were asked by the artist to write their thoughts and comments directly on their printed portrait. The authenticity of the portraits through this biographical element has, on the one hand, the danger of narrowing the view of socially critical aspects, but on the other hand expands the purely representational to a psychological-biographical dimension, which would otherwise remain untapped.
The art of Goldberg’s psychographic photo-text-collage insists, despite everything, on a somewhat shocking directness that has a sensitively balanced equilibrium of disclosure and respect. Here is where the cooperative element of the portraits comes into play: in that the protagonists "play along," they legitimize at the same time the disarming disclosure of intimacy. The resulting works thus contribute a continuously conciliatory character, which requires a mutual understanding and trust between the artist and his subject, and which convincingly conveys Goldberg's maxim: "I really feel like intimacy and trust are the guide to my work."
In addition to the series Rich and Poor the Forum für Fotografie presents newer work by Jim Goldberg, which in the style of a moving collage portrays the many protagonists of his most recent large-scale work, Open See. The work deals primarily with the victims of global crises: war refugees and victims of poverty, exploitation, and racism. The photographs were made in such countries as India, Congo, Senegal, and Ukraine.
Thomas Appel, translated by Thea Miklowski
Jim Goldberg was born in 1953 in New Haven, Connecticut. He received a Bachelor of Arts (Interdisciplinary in Photography and Education) in 1975 at the Western Washington University and a Master of Fine Arts in photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. Since 2006, Goldberg is a full member of MAGNUM photo agency and teaches as a Professor of Art at California College of Arts and Crafts. Goldberg earned an outstanding reputation through his photo books, multimedia exhibitions, and video installations. Beginning with the series Rich and Poor (1977-1985) he found a form of narrative photography, which combines images and text. His themes are primarily the state of the poor and weak in American society: thus in Raised by Wolves (1985-1995) street kids in Los Angeles and San Francisco are his protagonists. For three decades Goldberg’s work has been shown worldwide, and collected and exhibited by leading American museums. In 2007 he received the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award for the project The New Europeans. The artist is represented by Pace/McGill in New York, Stephen Wirtz in San Francisco, and MAGNUM in Paris.
The exhibition at the Forum für Fotografie was realized in collaboration with Magnum Gallery, Paris and Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne.
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