From Library Journal
This photographic album documents the past 20 years in the lives of the two artists and their "extended family." By way of introduction, Goldin writes about Armstrong and vice versa in two offhanded but meaningful tributes to their intertwined lives. The remainder of the book alternates Armstrong's black-and-white portraits and the mostly color snapshots and self-portraits by Goldin (e.g., The Other Side, LJ 5/ 15/93). High-quality reproductions and the lack of additional text reinforce the nonnarrative, slide-show quality of the work. The images are intimate, existential, and often disturbingly deadpan; yet they are pointedly unglamorous and anything but stagy. No one photo is more central than any other, whether it depicts the funeral of a friend who died of AIDS or a groggy woman reaching for a glass of orange juice on a night stand. Each moment in these scrutinized lives becomes important not only for its cruel ordinariness but because it is the moment that the picture was taken. A subjective diary has seldom been so universal. Recommended for all art and photography collections.
Douglas McClemont, New York
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Two old friends, photographers, survivors of druggy 1970s, and devotees of the drag-queen subculture, Goldin and Armstrong present photographs that summarize the long strange trip they've taken together. In 1970 Goldin, after failing to seduce Armstrong, realized before he had that he was gay. It was the beginning of a wonderful friendship, punctuated by a lot of sex (with other people) and drugs (with each other and anyone else). Collectively, the photographs add up to something of a mixture between a (raw, very raw) family album and a photo essay that follows a group of impulsive, charismatic people from the end of the hippy era through the glam-party 1970s and into the age of AIDS. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
