Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 9 hours ago
Marielle Epstein, assistant director of Interpretation, explores how Caravaggio’s intense treatment of light resonates in the work of contemporary nightclub photographers.
Caravaggio’s light, dramatic and revealing, gripped and repelled audiences throughout Rome. His light illuminated the divine in the same strokes as it did the city’s grit. Caravaggio navigated the Eternal City’s sometimes violent underworld not only as an observer but as a person who belonged to it, and his intimate understanding informed his artistic expression.
Today, contemporary nightclub photography by artists like Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tillmans continue the tradition, playing with light and shadow to capture pain, pleasure, violence, love, divination, sin, and redemption, offering a window into worlds that continue to captivate us.
Marielle Epstein, assistant director of Interpretation, explores how Caravaggio’s intense treatment of light resonates in the work of contemporary nightclub photographers.
Caravaggio’s light, dramatic and revealing, gripped and repelled audiences throughout Rome. His light illuminated the divine in the same strokes as it did the city’s grit. Caravaggio navigated the Eternal City’s sometimes violent underworld not only as an observer but as a person who belonged to it, and his intimate understanding informed his artistic expression.
Today, contemporary nightclub photography by artists like Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tillmans continue the tradition, playing with light and shadow to capture pain, pleasure, violence, love, divination, sin, and redemption, offering a window into worlds that continue to captivate us.
