The Ballad of Sexual Dependency - Wikipedia Guardian

The Ballad of Sexual Dependency - Wikipedia

The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

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The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1986). The image on the cover is "Nan and Brian in Bed" (1983).

The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a 1985 slide show exhibition and 1986 artist's book publication of photographs taken between 1979 and 1986 by photographer Nan Goldin.^[1][2] It is an autobiographical document of a portion of New York City's No wave music and art scene, the post-Stonewall gay subculture of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the heroin subculture of the Bowery neighborhood, and Goldin's personal family and love life.^[3]

Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said it "remains a benchmark for all other work in a similar confessional vein."^[4] Lucy Davies, writing in The Telegraph in 2014, said it "would come to influence a generation of fledgling photographers, who fell into her truth-telling wake. She was credited by Bill Clinton with inventing heroin chic".^[1]

Details[edit]

The title The Ballad of Sexual Dependency was adapted from a song in Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera.^{[5][citation needed]}

It was originally devised as a slideshow set to the music of Velvet Underground, James Brown, Nina Simone, Charles Aznavour, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Petula Clark among others, to entertain Goldin's friends.^[4][2] It "portrayed her friends – many of them part of the hard-drugs subculture on New York's Lower East Side – as they partied, got high, fought and had sex. It was first publicly shown at the Whitney Biennial in New York in 1985 and was published as a photobook the following year."^[4]

The snapshot aesthetic book was first published with help from Marvin Heiferman, Mark Holborn, and Suzanne Fletcher in 1986.^{[citation needed]}

Solo exhibitions[edit]

• 1985: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, screening. Whitney Museum of American Art.^[4]
• 1987: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, screening. Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France.^[1]
• 1997: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, exhibition and screening, Théâtre Antique. Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France.^{[citation needed]}
• 2009: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, exhibition and screening, Guest of honour at Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France.^{[citation needed]}
• 2016: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, exhibition and screening. Museum of Modern Art, New York.^{[citation needed]}
• 2017: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, exhibition and screening. Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine.^[6]
• 2019: NAN GOLDIN - The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, display and screening. Tate Modern, London.^[7]

Publications[edit]

• The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.
  • New York, NY: Aperture, 1986. ISBN 978-0-89381-236-2.
  • New York, NY: Aperture, 2012. Hardback ISBN 978-1-59711-208-6. Paperback ISBN 978-1-59711-210-9.

Collections[edit]

The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is held in the following permanent collection:

• Tate, UK^[8]

References[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Beyfus, Drusilla (26 Jun 2009). "Nan Goldin: unafraid of the dark". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 27 December 2014.
2. ^ Jump up to:^a b Bracewell, Michael (14 November 1999). "Landmarks in the Ascent of Nan". The Independent. Retrieved 27 December 2014.
3. ^ Goldin, Nan (2012). Marvin Heiferman; Mark Holborn; Suzanne Fletcher (eds.). The ballad of sexual dependency (2012 reissue ed.). New York, N.Y.: Aperture Foundation. ISBN 978-1-59711-208-6.
4. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d O'Hagan, Sean (20 July 2010). "Nan Goldin: 'I wanted to get high from a really early age'". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 December 2014.
5. ^ Brecht, Bertolt. "Three Penny Opera." Act II, song 12.
6. ^ Kany, Daniel (November 5, 2017). "Nan Goldin's Sexual Sanctuary on view at Portland Museum of Art".
7. ^ "Nan Goldin: Until 27 October 2019 – Display at Tate Modern". Tate.
8. ^ Walters, Joanna (22 March 2019). "Tate art galleries will no longer accept donations from the Sackler family". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-03-24 – via www.theguardian.com.

External links[edit]
The Guardian article

Product description

Review

Ballad of Sexual Dependency is at once a diary and a soap opera, an unerring portrait of a particular East Village bohemia and a sexual taxonomy for the '80s. -The Village Voice

Nan Goldin's Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a beggar's opera of recent times. Here were real thieves and unexpected heroes, and a sense that some things in life might still be worth a brawl. - Artforum

What Robert Frank's The Americans was to the 1950s, Nan Goldin's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is to the 1980s Goldin has created an artistic masterwork that tells us not only about the attitudes of her generation, but also about the times in which we live. -Andy Grundberg, The New York Times

Seen through her lens, the characters in her drama seem to become fully and inevitably themselves, with their personalities and physical appearance integrally linked. -The New York Times

In part a love poem to the bohemian life style of young people in New York City, it is also a melancholy meditation on the joys and terrors of romantic relationships, both straight and gay. -The New York Times

It is no exaggeration to describe Nan Goldin's monumental slide show, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, as one of the most important photographic works of recent years. -The New York Times

About the Author

Mark Holborn is an internationally recognized editor and designer of illustrated books working with a diverse range of artists, from William Eggleston to Lucian Freud. He is also a curator, author and specialist on Japanese culture. His books as an editor with Thames & Hudson include Antony Gormley on Sculpture, Susan Meiselas: On the Frontline and Daido Moriyama.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Aperture; Revised ed. edition (31 October 2012)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 144 pages

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