Jim Goldberg (San Francisco, USA)

American, born 1953, lives and works in San Francisco

Jim Goldberg is a Professor of Art at the California College of Arts and Crafts and a member of Magnum Photos.
He has been exhibiting for over 30 years and his innovative use of image and text make him a landmark photographer of our times.
He began to explore experimental storytelling and the potentials of combining image and text with Rich and Poor, (1977-85), where he juxtaposed the residents of welfare hotel rooms with the upper class and their elegantly furnished home interiors to investigate the nature of American myths about class, power, and happiness.
In Raised by Wolves (1985-95), he worked closely with and documented runaway teenagers in San Francisco and Los Angeles to create a book and exhibition that combined original photographs, text, home movie stills, snapshots, drawings, diary entries as well as single and multi-channel video, sculpture, found objects, light boxes and other 3-D elements.
Goldberg's current project focuses on migration, refugees and human trafficking in Europe.
Open See (2003-present) is the first volume of an ongoing body of work that will continue to explore the ever-evolving European immigrant community.
The work addresses their struggle to adapt to new European cultures and the reciprocal struggle of those cultures to adapt to them in turn.
Open See remains within Goldberg's multi-faceted and multimedia practice by using diverse formats to create a thickly interwoven, expressionistic narrative that tells a story from many points of view.
The presentation is conceived as a layered, sensory experience that overwhelms the viewer and forces a consideration of artistic form and documentary practice.

Jim Goldberg is represented by Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York and the Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco.
He joined Magnum Photos in 2002.

His work is in numerous private and public collections including MoMA, SFMOMA, Whitney, Getty, LACMA, Corcoran, MFA Boston, Hallmark Collection, The High Museum, Library of Congress, MFA Houston, National Museum of American Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Jim Goldberg's fashion, editorial and advertising work has appeared in numerous publications including W, Details, Flaunt, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Rebel, GQ, The New Yorker, and Dazed and Confused.

Selected Awards

2011
Deutsche Börse Photograph Prize, London UK.
2007
he Henri Cartier-Bresson Award, France; Soros Foundation-OSI Documentary Award, USA.
2006
The Aftermath Project Award, USA.
2001
The Art Council Award, USA; Hasselblad Award, Sweden.
1985
Guggenheim Fellowship, USA.
1980,
1989,
1990
NEA Fellowship in Photography, USA.
 
 

Selected Exhibitions

2011
Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, London, UK.
2010
Photographers' Gallery, London, England.
2009
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, France.
2007
Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
2004
Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, USA.
1997
San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, USA.
1995
Zürich Museum of Design, Zürich, Switzerland.
1988
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, USA.
1984
Houston Center for Photography, Houston, USA.

Selected Publications

2009
Open See, Steidl, Germany; Rich and Poor, Steidl, Germany.
2007
Jim Goldberg & Wolf Bowig: War is Only Half the Story, Aperture, USA; It Ended Sad, But I Love Where It Began, These Birds Walk, USA.
1996
Hospice: A Photographic Inquiry (In collaboration with Nan Goldin, Sally Mann, Jack Radcliffe, and Kathy Vargas), Bulfinch/Little, Brown & Company, USA.
1995
Raised by Wolves, Scalo Publications, USA.
1985
Rich and Poor, Random House, USA.