<p>Shot at the beginning of the pandemic, the legendary artist's photograph is currently on view at the Louvre</p>

Laurence Bertrand Dorléac

One work: 1st days in quarantine by Nan Goldin

<p>Photographs of flowers are very rare in Nan Goldin’s work. This bouquet sitting on the table in front of a window possesses a blurry charm that conjures the simple sensations of life. The photographer and activist watched the flowers wilt, petal by petal, when she was forced to stay locked down in her Brooklyn apartment during the first wave of COVID-19 in 2020. ‘Wilted flowers, in painting, are emblems of <em>memento mori</em>,’ writes Donatien Grau in the catalog for the exhibition ‘Les Choses: Une histoire de la nature morte’ (‘Things: A History of Still Life’) at the Louvre in Paris. A Post-it note stuck to the window with a drawing of two skulls reminds us that we are mortal. Goldin knows that everything can shift in an instant. Her sister’s suicide in 1963 showed her that nothing would ever be stable again; it was by photographing her family that she began her life as an artist, before limitlessly expanding her ‘tribe.’ Ever since, her works have contained signs of life and death, joy and pain, strength and frailty, love and hate, violence and tenderness. </p><p>Pain exists, and Goldin is one of the artists who gives it shape without turning away. She confronts it by plunging to the heart of worlds afflicted by death, sickness, AIDS, destruction. Over the years, by depicting those who are on the verge of falling apart, Goldin has become the muse of generations haunted by anxiety and distress. When she stands on the brink of the abyss, she does so without looking away. Some photographs are a particularly strong testament to this approach: her <em>Self-Portrait in Blue Bathroom, London</em> (1980), for instance, or <em>Drugs on the Rug, New York City</em> (2016).</p><p>Faced with her delicate image of dying flowers, one might liken Goldin to the 14th-century samurai in a famous haiku who, on the path to war, removes his armor at the sight of peonies. A dear friend tells me that this warrior stopped in his tracks, astonished at the beauty of these flowers that had disarmed him.</p>

<p>Nan Goldin is represented by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1198/Marian-Goodman-Gallery"></a><a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1198/Marian-Goodman-Gallery">Marian Goodman Gallery</a> (New York, Paris, London).</p><p>Laurence Bertrand Dorléac is an art historian. She is the&nbsp;curator of the exhibition&nbsp;‘Les Choses. Une histoire de la nature morte’, on view until January 23 2023, at the Louvre, Paris.</p><p>English translation:&nbsp;Peter Behrman de Sinety</p>

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Shot at the beginning of the pandemic, the legendary artist's photograph is currently on view at the Louvre

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