Witnesses – Against Our Vanishing: Nan Goldin, AIDS and the photograph of intimacy

Abstract

This article presents an unknown initiative in the historiography of the visual arts. An exhibition conceived by the American photographer Nan Goldin, who saw, in a moment of exception, a possibility to make visible the effects of the epidemic in the production of several artists. During the AIDS epidemic, in which prejudice and consecutive deaths set hard limits to action, Goldin mobilized a synthesis of profound delicacy. Taking up this example, in this context, opens a series of historical parallels that allow us to understand specificities and recurrences. More than establishing a kind of prognosis for future paths, the article encourages finding in historical examples forms of contact with the present.