Saints & Sisters

I'm still shuddering from attending photographer Nan Goldin's show "Chasing a Ghost" at the Matthew Marks Gallery. The centerpiece is a film/slide projection show called "Sisters, Saints, & Sibyls." If you attend, do not miss this film. Without viewing the film, her photographs, which are exhibited in the main gallery, are not nearly as powerful. The "film" consists of a three-screen projection that includes photographs, video, and voiceover. The subject: the ties between female saints, her sister's suicide, and Goldin's drug abuse and self-mutilation. You will see Goldin burning her arm with a cigarette. Very tough images. But they make sense. There is a context. After hearing about her family history and her reaction to it, you feel that her emotional descent was inevitable.