DOCUMENTARY AND STAGED

What is the dividing line between a documentary and a staged image? Can we determine when an image documents an event, or is interaction always part of the narrative? In our digital age, reality can be both created and consumed in real time through photographic images. Looking at the work of artists such as Nan Goldin, Anders Petersen and Wolfgang Tillmans, this complexity becomes particularly evident. Their different ways of presenting and representing reality raise questions about the staged and the documentary, questions that are of great importance for our understanding of what is real and true.

One of the most discussed photographers of our time, Nan Goldin (b. 1953), moved to New York in 1978 and became part of the bohemian circles of lower Manhattan. Her international breakthrough came with The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1979−86), in which she explores family, friendship and relationships. Often depicting sex, violence and drug addiction, Goldin’s images are deliberately staged to emphasise the private experiences she wants to convey. Her art is about encounters with places and people she loves, and tells stories about both the light and dark sides of life.

Anders Petersen (b. 1944), one of the few internationally recognised Swedish photographers, has cherished the legacy of his mentor Christer Strömholm (1918−2002). Petersen has always sought out people and environments that challenge and interest him. His best-known series of black-and-white photographs from the Café Lehmitz bar in Hamburg (1967−70), as well as the travelogue City Diary, consists of intimate depictions of vulnerable individuals from the margins of society. In Petersen’s subjective photography, the camera becomes a tool for making contact and being accepted; the images become part of the photographer’s own life. In several interviews, Nan Goldin has mentioned that she was influenced and inspired by both Christer Strömholm and Anders Petersen at the beginning of her career.

Working in the same tradition is Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968), who in the 1990s began to photograph everyday situations in London and New York, where club scenes, the gay world and political demonstrations became central motifs. By elevating these everyday scenes to almost monumental images, Tillmans very strikingly captured the spirit of the times. In his digital photographs, the “new world” is hypermodern, and the images renegotiate photographic conventions, where the distinction between documentary and staged is no longer relevant. Through his exploration of the photographic medium, Tillmans has influenced a whole generation of future artists and cultural practitioners in various fields.

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