79. NAN GOLDIN: A SPACE BETWEEN LOSS AND GROWTH.

Fragile Beauty, The Victoria and Albert Museum - LONDON.

Nan Goldin, Thanksgiving, 1973-1999. Cibachrome prints.

As flats of skin - scaled iridescent and gliding - as to unfurl from glistening - to slip simultaneously, as a seeded dandelion swathes a breeze, as a plume ushers a snuff of candled chorus - as to watch such bleeding impressions permeate to gold - as Caravaggio's Samson - shorn and sinking and Ophelia drowns in euphoric blisses.

Nan Goldin, Thanksgiving, 1973-1999. Cibachrome prints.

As to confess into a slipstream of admittance - a foaming - to flow as a torrent - and smash into open eyes as to be drunk at the wheel - embedded to crash - losing concentration - lucidity won.

Nan Goldin, Thanksgiving, 1973-1999. Cibachrome prints.

And with such tenderness - as drifting feathering of beats - passing by with a violence of continuing - of perpetual rhythms of an ongoing.

Nan Goldin, Thanksgiving, 1973-1999. Cibachrome prints.

To be halted - to be held up - to be dropped - to slump into sleep - to be bathed in a gloaming of evenings and the breaks between too late and too early - honeyed in remembrance and yet a space excavated to be flooded with the loneliness of sobriety as nature returns - cruel and spare - as dawn breaks this nectar - to remain there - to return there - a space within myself - alone again - and yet how do I leave? When such colours - beguile me - define me - and blur a line between loss and growth - between living and surviving, when to remove - risks remittance from this addiction to seeing with bruised eyes.

Nan Goldin, Thanksgiving, 1973-1999. Cibachrome prints.

Fragile Beauty - Victoria and Albert Museum - until 5 January 2025.

With thanks: Daisy Howarth at the Victoria and Albert Museum.