Photograph, dye destruction print on paper mounted on board
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Tate Patrons
Patrons of New Art
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/nan-goldin-2649" aria-label="More by Nan Goldin" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Nan Goldin</a>
Jimmy Paulette and Tabboo undressing NYC
Presented by the Patrons of New Art (Special Purchase Fund) through the Tate Gallery Foundation 1997
actions: postures and motions
actions: processes and functions
adults
bedroom
clubbing
domestic
drag
dress: fantasy/fancy
dressing / undressing
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
furnishings
individuals: male
interiors
Jimmy Paulette
leisure and pastimes
man
mirror
music and entertainment
named individuals
objects
people
photographic
portraits
sex and relationships
sitting
society
standing
Tabboo!
transvestism
<p>Nan Goldin describes her photographs as a 'visual diary'. She has stated: 'These are my friends, these are my family, this is myself. There is no separation between me and what I photograph.' The self-portrait Nan one month after being battered was taken to prevent Goldin from forgetting the damage caused by her boyfriend's violence. She applies the same frankness to the lives of her close friends. Goldin is attracted to the glamour of the world of drag-queens and transvestites. In Jimmy Paulette and Taboo! Undressing, NYC 1991, two men are caught in the midst of their gender transformation. Characteristically, this moment of exposure is presented with candour and empathy.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
paper print photograph dye destruction mounted board
8 December 2001 – 11 August 2002
2002-08-11
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2001-12-08
Telling Tales: Narrative Impulses in Recent Art [TL 2001]
Collection based display
12 February 2010 – 18 April 2010
2010-04-18
12 February 2010 – 18 April 2010
2010-04-18
2010-02-12
New Art Gallery Walsall (Walsall, UK)
http://www.artatwalsall.org.uk/
2010-02-12
Party Hard
Loan-out
26 November 2016 – 30 September 2018
2018-09-30
26 November 2016 – 30 September 2018
2018-09-30
2016-11-26
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2016-11-26
Grosz
Collection based display
Jimmy Paulette and Tabboo! undressing, NYC
image: 1015 × 695 mm
Presented by the <a href="/search?gid=999999965" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Patrons of New Art</a> (Special Purchase Fund) through the Tate Gallery Foundation 1997
<p>This is a large colour <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/photograph" title="Glossary definition for 'Photograph'"><span>photograph</span></a> of two drag queens, known as Jimmy Paulette and Taboo!, in a New York appartment. Jimmy Paulette is standing, leaning against a doorframe, looking directly at Goldin's camera. Taboo! is visible in a long mirror on the right hand side of the image, sitting on the floor engrossed with something beyond the mirror's frame. He has been caught in profile, his face pointing towards the lower centre of the photograph. Light above him accentuates the powerful musculature on his bare neck, shoulders and upper arms. His masculine body and closely shorn head contrast dramatically with his heavy eye makeup. Jimmy Paulette is still half in drag. In another photograph taken during the same period, <i>Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a taxi, NYC </i>1991 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/goldin-misty-and-jimmy-paulette-in-a-taxi-nyc-p78046" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P78046</span></a>), he appears fully costumed, complete with a gold bra and a blonde wig. In this image his glamorous makeup is intact but he has removed his wig. He wears the same white stretchy net top. Marks on the skin around his waist indicate that he was previously wearing something tight, now replaced by cut-off black shorts. The scene has a spontaneous atmosphere as though Goldin, witnessing a domestic ritual, has casually picked up her camera to record it. Goldin first encountered drag queens in 1972 and quickly became obsessed. She explained: 

</p><p>     I was eighteen and felt like I was a queen too  they became my whole world. <br/>     Part of my worship of them involved photographing them. I wanted to pay <br/>     homage, to show them how beautiful they were. I never saw them as men dressing <br/>     up as women, but as something entirely different - a third gender that made more <br/>     sense than either of the other two. I accepted them as they saw themselves; I had <br/>     no desire to unmask them with my camera. <br/>     (Quoted in <i>The Other Side</i>, p.5.) 

</p><p>In the early 1970s Goldin and her gay friends were inspired by the camp decadence portrayed in such artists' films as Jack Smith's <i>Flaming Creatures</i> 1961. Their social lives revolved around glamorous dressing up in order to live out the fantasy of reconstructed identities. Goldin's earliest photographic work in black and white comprises <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portraits</span></a> of room-mates and close friends transformed through the effects of drag glamour. Goldin photographed them at home and in The Other Side, the bar in her home town of Boston which was frequented by drag queens. She developed her personal, spontaneous snapshot aesthetic in this environment following the precedent of Hungarian-born George Brassai (1899-1984) who photographed Paris night club scenes in the 1920s. This initial series of images was interrupted when Goldin went to study art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1974. Throughout the 1980s, while she was living in New York, Goldin continued to socialise with and photograph people of ambiguous gender, although her main work during this period, documented in <i>The Ballad of Sexual Dependency </i>1981,<i> </i>was about the difficulty of heterosexual relationships. In 1990 she began a new series of images. She recalled: 'I met a whole new crowd of queens in N.Y. in 1990  My old obsession was reawakened. I developed one fixation after another. I photographed my new friends constantly  After years of experiencing and photographing the struggle of the two genders with their codes and definitions and their difficulties in relating to each other, it was liberating to meet people who had crossed these gender boundaries.' (Quoted in <i>The Other Side</i>, p.6.) <i>Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a taxi, NYC</i>, like <i>Jimmy Paulette and Taboo! undressing, NYC </i>1991 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/goldin-jimmy-paulette-and-tabboo-undressing-nyc-p11513" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P11513</span></a>), is part of a large series of colour photographs of glamorous drag queens taken in New York, Paris and Berlin in 1991. These are compiled with other photographs of people of ambiguous gender in Goldin's third published book, named after the Boston bar, <i>The Other Side</i>. Goldin has said: 'I've met other women who are infatuated with queens and transsexuals but I still haven't found a definition. There is a sense of freedom in having a desire that has never been labelled. As a bisexual person, for me the third gender seems to be the ideal.' (Quoted in <i>The Other Side</i>, p.7.)

</p><p><b>Further reading:<br/></b><i>Nan Goldin: I'll be your Mirror</i>, exhibition catalogue, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 1996, reproduced (colour) p.308<br/><i>Nan Goldin, The Other Side</i>, Manchester, England 1993, reproduced (colour) p.80<br/>Iwona Blazwick, Simon Wilson, Tate Modern: the handbook, London 2000, p.161, reproduced (colour) p.161

</p><p>Elizabeth Manchester<br/>December 2001

</p><p></p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>Nan Goldin describes her <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/photograph" title="Glossary definition for 'Photograph'"><span>photographs</span></a> as a 'visual diary'. She has stated: 'These are my friends, these are my family, this is myself. There is no separation between me and what I photograph.' The self-<a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> Nan one month after being battered was taken to prevent Goldin from forgetting the damage caused by her boyfriend's violence. She applies the same frankness to the lives of her close friends. Goldin is attracted to the glamour of the world of drag-queens and transvestites. In Jimmy Paulette and Taboo! Undressing, NYC 1991, two men are caught in the midst of their gender transformation. Characteristically, this moment of exposure is presented with candour and empathy. </p>
Display caption
2004-08-27T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p>A cibachrome photograph printed on high gloss resin coated paper, which has been drymounted to a sheet of foam core board. The print is signed and dated with the title inscribed on the verso. The print is in mint condition.</p><p>Calvin Winner<br/>September 1998<br/></p>
Technique and condition
2001-09-05T00:00:00
technique-and-condition
TECHNIQUE_AND_CONDITION_TEXT
actions: postures and motions actions: processes and functions adults bedroom clubbing domestic drag dress: fantasy/fancy dressing / undressing emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities furnishings individuals: male interiors Jimmy Paulette leisure and pastimes man mirror music and entertainment named individuals objects people photographic portraits sex and relationships sitting society standing Tabboo! transvestism