This is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary artist. Quite how the previous reviewer can state that few of the images stand alone is beyond me: time and again Goldin finds sacred in the profane, beauty in ugliness, tenderness in extremis. Nan Goldin fashions the sublime from the everyday; she finds salvation in a godless world through intimacy and trust. Of course, in the context of major social changes over the last 30 years, Goldin's work has enormous political -- as well as artistic -- resonance. On the face of it, Nan Goldin is a documentary photographer -- she works with natural light, her photographs are unstaged, her subjects 'real people' (in fact, her extended family). And yet the editing -- which is one of many strokes of brilliance in this book -- is anything but accidental; composition is extraordinary; nuance infinitely affecting.
Nan Goldin is a genius. And short of another major retrospective at the Whitechapel or a restaging of Ballad at Tate Modern, this is currently the closest we can get to the heart of a great artist.