Vicki Goldberg

A COUPLE OF REVIEWS Of MY WRITING:

BRUCE DAVIDSON:
".... using the skills that have made her one of the great modern critics of the photography scene, Goldberg applies a subtle lyricism to the life and work of Bruce Davidson--some subjective editorial and emotional "overlay" whose brilliance is heightened by its being hidden behind the objective facts and photographs."
-- Joseph Klein on Amazon

LIGHT MATTERS (collected essays): Regarding an essay on Joseph Koudelka: "This is gorgeous writing. Not just succinct, it is profound. In half a paragraph, Ms. Goldberg has explained one of the most difficult issues critics must deal with, and it is necessary to note in savoring it that there is no learned jargon, no platitudinous cant: She can make this complex thought clear to her readers because it is clear to her, and because she is confident they can get it." - The New York Sun


"Few writers on photography can match the wit and authority of Vicki Goldberg. LIGHT MATTERS, a collection that brings together 25 years of essays and reviews, is full of sparkling tidbits: 'Photography's invention was peculiarly timely, occurring as it did just as the human life span was expanding and the prospect of an afterlife shrinking.'" - V & A Magazine (Victoria & Albert Museum)

EXCERPT FROM MY NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF THE SALLY MANN SHOW AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY, IN WHICH I DISCUSSED HER OBSESSION WITH DEATH -- MARCH 29, 2018
.....
There is a kind of heroism in staring straight at the vexed meanings of landscape, the complexities of family, memory and life itself, as well as the face of death and the carnage of history. There may be nothing heroic about an obsession with death, but when it produces high-caliber art the issue is effectively closed. After all, death is obsessed with us, and it will have the last word.


AN EXCERPT FROM MY INTRODUCTION TO CIG HARVEY'S BOOK,
"EMERGENCY," 2013:

Cig Harvey’s world has a tendency to veer about twenty degrees north of expectations. It’s barely possible that an imp hides in her camera – it might even be an imp that moonlights as a mystery writer – and what do you know, it steals out now and then to put its stamp on her photographs. How else to explain a girl quite pleased with a huge leaf of cabbage on her head, or a woman in a dress standing on a buoy in the middle of the ocean? Oh bother, trying to answer questions like these would be rather like trying to explain a piano concerto, or, for that matter, love. I’d gladly settle for the influence of an imp. However they came about, pictures that pose such entertaining and unanswerable questions map out a decidedly individual and delightfully off-compass realm.

Which brings up the question of whether explanations are a suitable answer to photographs. Some things are meant to be experienced, not parsed. It’s true that certain photographs cry out for elucidation (or at least captions). If they’re news photographs, it’s useful to know whether you’re seeing friend or foe, Cambodia or Afghanistan.. If the images are from unfamiliar cultures with myths and politics beyond our ken, we need help. But abstract photographs like Francis Bruguiere’s cut-paper abstractions in the 1920s or Shinichi Maruyama’s recent photographs of jets of paint flung into mid air? We know how they were made, but the real response lies out beyond the facts.

CV

Vicki Goldberg
P. O. Box 217
Waterville Valley, NH 03215
Phone: (917) 743 8149
e-mail: vickigoldberg@outlook.com

BOOKS

Bruce Davidson (a biography), (Prestel, 2016)

The White House: The President's Home in Photographs and History (Little Brown, 2011) - in cooperation with the White House Historical Association -
250 photographs from the 1840s to 2010 of the White House, the presidents, their wives, children, staffs, guests, pets,kitchens, bathrooms, etc., plus relations with the media and involvement with technology
The Christian Science Monitor had it on their holiday list, Vanity Fair had it in Hot Type, Newsday had it in its New Design Book section. I spoke about it at the National Archives and various other places, including Wellesley College and Dartmouth. A week before the election, American Profile magazine did a cover story on it.

Light Matters, a selection of my essays (Aperture, 2005)

Co-Author, American Photography: A Century of Images (Chronicle, 1999), book accompanying the PBS documentary of the same name

The Power of Photography: How Photographs Changed Our Lives (Abbeville Press, 1991)
American Library Association list, best academic books of year
New York Times, Boston Globe, and Chicago Tribune lists of the year's best books on photography

Margaret Bourke-White: A Biography (Harper & Row, 1986; Addison-Wesley, 1987)
American Library Association list, best books of the year
New York Times and New York magazine lists of best biographies of the year
The Frank Luther Mott - Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award
Honorable mention, Kraszna-Krausz Award (biennial, international award for best book on photography)
Honors, Maine Photographic Workshop

Editor, Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present (University of New Mexico Press, 1988)
October, 2006, Wall Street Journal names this one of the five best books ever on photography

ARTICLES, BOOK INTRODUCTIONS

Regular articles on photography for the New York Times for 13 years, articles on art and photography for Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, American Photo, Aperture, Art in America, ArtNews, Focus, Paris Photo, Foto and Video (Russia) etc.

BOOK AND CATALOG TEXTS

Most recently: Arno Rafael Minkinnen, Minkinnen, (Kehrer Verlag), 2019, Cig Harvey, "You an Orchestra, You a Bomb", Sarah C. Butler, "Frozen in Time" (Glitterati), Barry Fellman, "Hurricane", William Meyers, "Outer Boroughs" (Damiani), 2015; Annu P. Matthews, "Memories of India" 2015; Bohnchang Koo, "White Porcelains" 2015; Alejandro Almaraz, brochure and wall text for "Portraits of Power," Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, D.C., 2013; Cig Harvey, catalog for "Gardening at Night", Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME, 2013; Serge Assier, Quatre rives & un regard (Promotion de la Photographie de Presse en Region PACA), 2013; Cig Harvey, You Look At Me Like An Emergency (Schilt, 2012), Susan Paulsen, Sarah Rhymes With Clara (Steidl, 2011); Maria Antonietta Mameli, Free Compositons (Mousse Publishing, 2011, catalog for a show in Milan and New York); George Zimbel, A Book of Readers (Editions du Passage, 2011); Sophie Delaporte, Nudes (SousLesEtoiles Gallery, 2011).

Forthcoming: Yolanda Del Amo, Archipelago    Fall, 2020

Contributing editor, American Photographer, 1978 –
Contributing editor, Aperture magazine, 2004 -

CURATOR

Face to Face, Rey Center, Waterville Valley, 2010

Points of Entry: American Immigration, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, 1995, two year tour -- also: catalogue essay

Bourke-White: A Retrospective, International Center of Photography, 1988-90, two year tour of U. S. and Japan -- also: catalogue essay

TEACHING

Rhode Island School of Design, 2002 - 2008

Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City, 2002

Institute of Fine Art, New York, 1997

Frequent lectures in U.S. and abroad, including Singapore Photography Museum, 2017, Universita di Bellas Artes, Rome, 2014; The Arts Arena, Paris, 2013; China Photographers Association, Beijing, 2013; Universidade de Belas Artes, Lisbon, Portugal, 2011; keynote address, World Press Photo 2004 and keynote address, Pingyao International Photography Festival, China, 2006 and 2007; Dalian University, China, 2007, University of Art and Architecture, Xi'An, China, 2009; Preus Museum, Norway, 2007; Ellipse Foundation, Lisbon, 2007
Singapore, 2017
JUDGE, ART AND PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPETITIONS

Lucelia Art Awards, 2003; The Eisies, 2000; Kraszna-Krausz Awards, 1998 and 2000; W. Eugene Smith Grants, 1998; McDowell Colony, 1993-95; others

GRANTS
Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Grant for Research, to study violence in the mass visual media, 19th and 20th century, 1994 -- renewed, 1995

AWARDS

Honorary Doctorate, Lesley University, Boston, May, 2011

Long Chen Cup Award (“for excellent achievement in promoting photography in the world”), China, 2006

Dudley Johnston Award, The Royal Photographic Society, 1999

International Center of Photography, Infinity Award for Writing, 1997

Photographic Administrators, Inc., Award for Writing, 1997

Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism, School of Journalism, University of Missouri at Columbia, 1995 (previously given only to photographers)

BOARDS

Arts Arena, 2009 -

Architectural League of New York, 2000 - 2010

Visiting Committee, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2004-2006 (the committee was discontinued)

TELEVISION

Senior consultant, “American Photography: A Century of Images,” three-hour PBS documentary, October, 1999

Consultant and on-camera commentator, “Decisive Moments,” six-part BBC series, 1997