Skip to main content
Skip to footer Skip to Acknowledgement of Country
National Gallery of Australia
What's On Art & Artists Visit
Login
  1. Home
  2. What's on
  3. Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin

New Collection
8 Jul 2023 – 28 Jan 2024

Nan Goldin, Mark tattooing Mark, Boston, 1978, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased in celebration of the National Gallery of Australia's 40th anniversary, 2022 © Nan Goldin

'For me it is not a detachment to take a picture. It’s a way of touching somebody—it’s a caress, I think that you can actually give people access to their own soul.’

NAN GOLDIN

  • About

About


The ballad of sexual dependency is a defining artwork of the 1980s. Nan Goldin’s extended photographic study of her chosen family – her ‘tribe’ – 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.

Goldin takes photographs to connect, to keep the people she loves in her memory. She is committed to the idea that photography can faithfully record a time and place, and do so in a way that has real social purpose. Using a documentary, snapshot style, she lays bare her life in the manner of a family album. We see her alongside her friends and lovers as they live their lives – hanging out, falling in and out of love, having children. But this is a community that would be decimated by HIV/AIDS and drug-related deaths. The ballad has become as much a testament to how much Goldin and her community have lost, as it is a record of the look and feel of a past time.

Goldin refers to The ballad as her ‘public diary’, stating that her photographs ‘come out of relationships, not observation’. The work’s overriding themes, she has stated, are those of love and empathy and the tension between autonomy and interdependence in relationships—relationships in which all genders struggle to find a common language.

Curator: Anne O’Hehir, Curator, Photography

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.


Related


Prints & Drawings

Daily Rituals

The National Gallery’s acquisition of The fitting by Mary Cassatt reveals the artist’s radical approach to printmaking, writes Griselda Pollock.

Read Time 8 minutes
Introducing

Kara Walker

An artist's studio with works on paper pinned to the wall and tables of mixed media. An artist is working in the background with gloves handling clay.

Curator Sally Foster introduces us to artist Kara Walker

Read Time 20 minutes
Australian Art

Things Seen
Cressida Campbell

On the eve of Cressida Campbell's retrospective at the National Gallery, novelist Tegan Bennett Daylight paid a visit to the artist’s studio.

Read Time 18 minutes

Janet Fieldhouse
Art Makers x National Gallery

Janet Fieldhouse's commission is the second instalment of the Art Makers series in the National Gallery Sculpture Garden.

Reaching for the stars
Lindy Lee

Woman artist sitting on her studio floor holding a sculpture maquette

Commissioned to make her first immersive public sculpture for the Gallery's 40th anniversary, we sat down with Lindy Lee to talk art, life and loss.

Read Time 17 minutes

Your World is About to Change

American artist Kara Walker’s animation uses performance and text to tell a story ‘reminiscent of a slave testimony or folktale’.

Read Time 14 minutes

Browse hundreds of current and past exhibitions

Current Exhibitions Exhibition History
A sphere made of interlocking geometric shapes hangs in the sky

Yuuma, Gurruburri

The National Gallery acknowledges the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, the Traditional Custodians of the Kamberri/Canberra region, and recognises their continuous connection to culture, community and Country.

  • National Gallery On Demand
  • Art & Artists
  • What's On
  • Visit
  • Membership
  • Donate
  • Jobs
  • About Us

Connect

+61 2 6240 6411
information@nga.gov.au
Get art in your inbox

Open every day

(except Christmas day)
10am – 5pm

Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country
Parkes Place East, Parkes ACT 2600

View Street Map
View Gallery Map


Contact us

National Gallery of Australia

Follow the National gallery of Australia on:

  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Website Privacy Website Disclaimer Website Copyright
Opening Acknowledgment of Country

The National Gallery acknowledges the First Peoples of this land and recognises their continuous connection to culture, community and Country

Learn More
Aerial view of artist Lola Greeno walking along Rocky Beach
Aerial view of artist Lola Greeno walking along Rocky Beach
    • View All
    • Today
    • Exhibitions
    • On tour
    • Access Programs
    • All Programs
    • On Demand
    • About the Collection
    • Sculpture Garden
    • Kenneth E. Tyler Collection
    • Provenance
    • Conservation
    • Copyright
    • Search the Collection
    • Plan Your Visit
    • Getting Here
    • Parking & Transport
    • Art Store
    • Dining
    • Visiting with Kids
    • Research Library & Archives
    • Admission tickets
    • Browse Stories
    • Browse Videos
    • Podcasts
    • Audio Tours
    • Virtual Tours
    • The Annual
    • Publications
    • Learning Programs
    • For people with access needs
    • For Teachers & Students
    • For Young People
    • For Kids & Families
    • For Adults
    • For Your Community
    • Art Cases
    • Educator Programs
    • Get Involved
    • Membership
    • Voluntary Guides
    • Partnerships
    • Support
    • Donate
  • First Nations
  • Access
  • Art Store
  • Media
  • Venue Hire
  • About Us
  • Contacts