JIM GOLDBERG POLAROIDS
Raised by Wolves
Notable for his intersectionality between photography and text, the images of American photographer Jim Goldberg possess insulated layers of intimacy, elements of storytelling, and unequivocal personality. An ally to marginalized and disparaged groups of people, Goldberg has converged his artistic expression with the rough edges of those positioned at the fringes of orthodox societal standards. In Fingerprint, a printed edition of loose leaf images, the youth of the late 1980s and early 1990s in San Francisco and Los Angeles are captured within the borders of 45 Polaroid pictures.
Siphoned in by the glittering gold of California and spat out onto the streets, many of the young people air their Hollywood grievances upon Goldberg’s Polaroid prints. Tidbits of wisdom, fragments of stories, and a range of expletives are haphazardly etched out in blacks, reds, and blues across the photographs. Battle scars, black eyes, and rough demeanors are worn like jewelry as subjects scowl and peer at the camera through tired eyes. The grime and rock-and-roll of youthful poverty is rampant in the images, at times nearly running the risk of appearing glamorous; however, at its core, remaining jarringly concrete in its explicit adversity.
“I have the great privilege of being both witness and storyteller. Intimacy, trust, and intuition guide my work,” Jim Goldberg has previously noted on his process. The narratives in which Goldberg spells out with his photography highlight the convoluted lifestyles of those on the outskirts of traditional society while still managing to harness the spirit of inherent humanity which remains in even the darkest of places. No stranger to the black sheep complex, Goldberg’s ability to habituate to the restless youth of California was seemingly effortless. Via his understanding of the drug users, the homeless, and runaways, the viewer is granted the opportunity to plunge into unfamiliar terrain and encounter a story narrated by one of the great seminal photographers of our time.
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