Rafael Goldchain
(1953–)
Rafael Goldchain
1953–
Rafael Goldchain (1953– ) is a Canadian photographer. He was born into Polish-Jewish heritage in Santiago, Chile, and educated in Jerusalem, Israel, before moving to Toronto.
Goldchain earned a BA in Photographic Studies at Ryerson University, an MFA in Visual Arts at York University, and a MA in Art History at the University of Toronto. His early style is influenced by his experiences in Chile and México. He yielded works that enlisted portraiture and personal documentary and staged with a vision-from-exile of diverse lands and cultures convulsed by conflict and rapid change. Goldchain later photographed a series of self-portraits of himself as his ancestors, many lost in the Holocaust, and many spread out over South and Central America in the early 20th century. Some notable works among this period include “I Am My Family: Photographic Memories and Fictions” (2008). The performative images suggest intimate links between identity, memory, history, and photographic portraiture.
In recent bodies of work, Goldchain resorts to architectural and natural subject matter. Conceived as a form of self-portraiture, images of crumbling pillars and tangled shrubs are meditations on ageing, beauty, complexity, and mortality that seek a balance between vulnerability and strength.
His photographs are included in the collections of major museums, such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Museum of Modern Art, the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y Las Artes (México), and the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile.
Rafael Goldchain’s distinctions include the Leopold Godowsky Prize in Photography and the Duke and Duchess of York Prize in Photography. In 2001, Goldchain travelled to Chile and Argentina with Governor General Adrienne Clarkson as part of a Canadian cultural delegation.
Goldchain’s life and work are the subject of a documentary film entitled “Beautifully Broken: The Life and Times of Rafael Goldchain.”