// THE BALLAD OF SEXUAL DEPENDENCY //

Over the course of 25 years (1979-2004) and through numerous cities (New York, London, Berlin, and beyond) photographer Nan Goldin closely followed and documented the daily life and encounters of the friends, family, and lovers that she would come to describe as her ‘tribe’.

 “There is a popular notion that the photographer is by nature a voyeur, the last one invited to the party.But I’m not crashing; this is my party. This is my family, my history.”

In what would become a visual diary of urban life throughout the eighties, an era scared by AIDS and drug addiction, she acurately lay bare issues of gender roles, the insatiable longing for intimacy and understanding, and the struggle between independency and interdependency within the concept of the couple and relationships.

 “In my family of friends, there is a desire for the intimacy of the blood family, but also a desire for something more open-ended. Roles aren’t so defined. These are long-term relationships. People leave, people come back, but these separations are without the breach of intimacy. We are bonded not by blood or place, but by a similar morality, the need to live fully and for the moment, a disbelief in the future, a similar respect for honesty, a need to push limits, and a common history. We live life without consideration, but with consideraition. There is among us an ability to listen and to emphasize that surpasses the normal definition of friendship.”

The Ballad of Sexual Dependency was first published in 1986 as a series of images and stories and has, through the experience of change and loss, become into a visual imprint of a memory, one story without an end.

The installation currently on view at the MoMa presents a slide show of some 700 portraits sequenced against a music soundtrack prepared by Goldin’s friends, from Maria Callas to The Velvet Underground

Nan Goldin - The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

MoMa

New York

11.6.2016 – 12.2.2017

 

© Nan Goldin. Courtesy the artist.

 

  / by Kim Poorters /