The ballad of sexual dependency with curator Anne O’Hehir

Free, booking essential 

Join Anne O’Hehir (Curator, Photography) to explore Nan Goldin’s defining artwork of the 1980s, The ballad of sexual dependency. 

Nan Goldin refers to The ballad of sexual dependency as her ‘public diary.’ The work shows Goldin alongside her friends and lovers as they live their lives – hanging out, falling in and out of love, having children. Goldin’s immediate community would go on to be decimated by HIV/AIDS and drug-related deaths, and the work has become a testament to how much Goldin and her community have lost.

The ballad of sexual dependency began life as a slide show screened in the clubs and bars of New York where Goldin and her friends worked and played. The slide show was then distilled to a series of 126 photographs which has recently become part of the National Gallery’s collection.

Following the talk, stay for a special screening of Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Laura Poitras’ 2022 documentary All The Beauty and The Bloodshed. Free, booking essential.

The ballad of sexual dependency is on display in Gallery 26 (Level 2) from the 8 July to 28 January 2024.

Viewer advice: 

The photographs in Nan Goldin’s The ballad of sexual dependency depict the everyday lives, often in intimate detail, of people in Goldin’s immediate community during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Please be advised that works of art in this exhibition depict explicit nudity, sexual acts, drug use, and the impacts of violence against women.

Viewer discretion is advised.

This exhibition is not suitable for children under the age of 15.