These images are from photographer Nan Goldin’s (born 1953) most well known exhibition, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. The pictures above are captured from MoMA’s instillation of Goldin’s slideshow. This almost 700 portrait slideshow is Goldin’s distinct and personal narrative crafted from her experiences during the 1970s and 80s. Her subjects were friends of hers captured in intimate moments spanning from drug use to sex. In describing her work Goldin claims that “people commonly think of the photographer as the voyeur, but this is my party, I’m not crashing.” In stating this, Goldin identifies herself along with the subjects of her artwork, blurring the relationship between outside photographer and inside subject. She gains more explicit permission to photograph and publicize her subjects simply because she knows them more intimately than many other photographers would know their subjects. Of The Ballad of Sexual Dependency Goldin states that this, “is the diary I let people read. The diary is my form of control over my life . . . it enables me to remember.” Her very raw and very personal images are part of her own constructed narrative and she chooses to share that narrative with the world.
images & info courtesy of MoMA website: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1651?#installation-images
#NanGoldin #MoMA #photography #GoldinsBallad #lgbtqexperiencesusa
-MF