Jim Goldberg is an American artist
Episode 383: Jim Goldberg‘s new book Coming and Going, published by MACK should need little introduction. The book is one of the finest of the year, if not decade. It aligns with his books Rich and Poor and Raised by Wolves.
Thematically, Coming and Going sees Jim tackling autobiography, family, and something approaching a reflection on mortality. It is complex yet universal and underscores the most extraordinary ability of photography to function with a relational and empathic utility. In the book, Jim outlines a personal story of his parents and his family. The photographs of the Goldberg family are cut, reduced, re-assembled, and made monumental through the act of Jim’s collage work. The overtones of his parent’s death are minimized through the process, and instead, in eulogy and practice, the images become playful, if elegiac. It is a fascinating element of the work.
Coming and Going is an incredible book. It reminds me in many ways of Jim’s influential Raised by Wolves, but it is more personal. You feel the work as much as you read it, which is rare in today’s world of meaningless platitudes emitted at every convenience when questing for narcissistic individuality in producing poorly self-absorbed half-measures masquerading as meaningful. Buy this book and reconnect.
