Valérie in the Taxi, Paris, 2001: The Devil’s Playground

Special edition of The Devil's Playground that is beautifully bound, individually signed and numbered, and presented in a specially made box together with an original print, also signed and numbered by Nan Goldin Valerie in the taxi, Paris captures a candid moment between friends, laid-back but with an apparent intensity to Valerie's conversation that the camera rarely captures. Renowned for tender, honest, revealing, intimate and sometimes brutal pictures of herself and what she calls her extended family, Nan Goldin (b.1953) is so close to her subjects that they hardly remember she is there. Like a visual diary her photographs tell the stories of emotional turmoil, passion and peace. This image captures Nan's friends in moments of total self-absorption, moments into which Nan has been allowed after long periods of building up intense relationships and trust with her subjects, so that the camera is as much a part of the relationship as she is. Goldin's pictures are both courageously candid and affirmative, documenting the births and deaths, the mundane and the ecstasies, the drugs and rehab of her life as a photographer, friend and lover.