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Nan Goldin

American  •  b. 1953

Biography

American artist Nan Goldin uses photography to expose the intimate and vulnerable nature of her personal life. Her photographs are raw, authentic, sexual and, at times, highly violent. Her most famous series, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, chronicles Goldin's life during the late 1970s and '80s, following the artist through the gritty, abusive and often dangerous situations she put herself through.

The material being half-autobiographical and half-universal, Goldin attempts to depict the complexities of city living by way of diaristic practices. Having shot New York during its golden years, she has created an expansive archive of the AIDS crisis, drug abuse in the 1980s, underground culture and urban development.

Insights

  • Goldin titled The Ballad of Sexual Dependency after a song in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera.

  • Much of the pain present in Goldin's photographs stems from her sister Barbara's suicide. 

  • Photographer David Armstrong is credited with coining Nancy Goldin's nickname, "Nan."

"I used to think that I could never lose anyone if I photographed them enough. In fact, my pictures show me how much I've lost."

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