Rich and Poor Series; Paul Wonner and Countess Vivianna de Blonville

Jim Goldberg

Claiming, “I have the great privilege of being both witness and storyteller,” Jim Goldberg documents people from all walks of life—including homeless teens, celebrities, and refugees—in his penetrating photographs and films. He has been exhibiting his work for more than 30 years in galleries, museums, and public spaces. Guided, in his words, by “intimacy, trust, and intuition,” he gains his subjects’ confidence, and they allow him intimate access into their lives. In Raised by Wolves (1985-95), for example, he worked with runaway teens in California, sensitively and unflinchingly documenting their lives through images, texts, and other materials. Goldberg considers himself a storyteller, but one who aims to raise questions and foreground ambiguity. He frequently overlays text onto his images, inviting his subjects to write directly onto his photographs of them, and including their own words in his books and films.