From Publishers Weekly
The drag queens and transsexuals in Goldin's frank photographs inhabit an ambivalent zone between fixed gender identities. Her deceptively casual, color and black-and-white pictures are about social alienation, vulnerability, reconstructing one's identity and the will to survive. By turns raunchy, matter-of-fact, tawdry and celebratory, these affirmative images explore the "underground" world of queens and transsexuals from Boston to Bangkok, with stops in New York City, Berlin and Manila. In her accompanying text, the bisexual New York-based photographer recalls her live-in affair with a drag queen in the 1970s and analyzes the diverse motivations of her subjects. Some shift genders daily, "from boy to girl and back again." Some dress up only for stage performances, while still others pursue the drag life for glamour and fashion.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The title of this photography collection is taken from a Boston club that Goldin first visited in 1972 and also refers to the subjects in her photos. Goldin ( The Ballad of Sexual Dependency , Aperture, 1986) writes in the introduction that "the third sex," the transsexuals and transvestites depicted here, "are the real winners of the battle of the sexes because they have stepped out of the ring." Yet when discussing the Whitney Biennial, which includes photos from this book, when she appeared on a recent segment of PBS's Charlie Rose Show , Goldin explained that her photography is foremost an attempt to represent her own life. Indeed, in spite of the lush and subtle color and careful proportion of these images, they maintain a feel of family snapshots. This apparent paradox in her intentions--still visible in the finished product--is the very value of her work: the ability to show difference not as exotic or separate or exclusionary but as everyday and real and integrated. Though one wishes for a longer introduction or notes (excluded to maintain the photo album effect, perhaps), this is recommended for all contemporary photography collections in public and academic libraries.
- Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
