This Will Not End Well

Artists

Nan Goldin

Press release

Neue Nationalgalerie’s retrospective is the first exhibition in Germany to present a comprehensive overview of Goldin’s work as a filmmaker. The exhibition is installed in six unique buildings designed by Hala Wardé, an architect who frequently works with Goldin. Each building is designed in response to the specific piece. Together they constitute a village. “I have always wanted to be a filmmaker. My slideshows are films made up of stills,” says Nan Goldin.

The exhibition is comprised of: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1981–2022), her magnum opus; The Other Side (1992– 2021), a historical portrait produced as an homage to her trans friends whom she photographed 1972–2010; Sisters, Saints and Sibyls (2004–2022), a testament to the trauma of families and suicide; Fire Leap (2010–2022), a foray into the world of children; Memory Lost (2019–2021), a claustrophobic journey through drug withdrawal; and Sirens (2019–2020), a trip into drug ecstasy.


The Artist Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin (born in Washington D.C. in 1953) is one of the most high-profile artists of our time. Her work's exploration of the human experience is legendary and has profoundly influenced subsequent generations. Her first work, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, documents life in Provincetown, the Lower East Side of New York City, Berlin and London beginning in the 1970s and 80s and up to the present day. Goldin photographed the world of her inner circle of creative, bohemian friends with raw tenderness. Her photographs give us snapshots of intimacy and coupling, the quotidian and wild parties, and the struggle between autonomy and dependency.