CANBERRA.- 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.

'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

The ballad of sexual dependency with curator Anne O’Hehir
Sat 22 Jul 2023, 12.30pm – 1.15pm
Join curator Anne O’Hehir to explore Nan Goldin’s defining artwork of the 1980s, The ballad of sexual dependency. Following the talk, a special screening of Academy Award-winning filmmaker, Laura Poitras’ All The Beauty and The Bloodshed will be held in our James Fairfax theatre.

All The Beauty and The Bloodshed Film Screening
Sat 22 Jul 2023, 2pm
Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras, this film explores artist Nan Goldin’s art and activism in an emotional retelling through slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography and rare footage of her personal fight with the Sackler family. Join curator Anne O’Hehir for a floor talk in the exhibition space before the screening.

Art Lab: Tell your story
Sat 26 & Sun 27 Aug, 2023, 2pm
Presented in partnership with PhotoAccess, this workshop will teach you how to use photography as a tool for documentation, observation, and expression through personal storytelling. All materials provided.

Art Lab: Tell your story (online)
Sat 2, Sun 3, Sat 9, Sun 10 Sep, 2023, 1pm | Free, bookings essential
Presented in partnership with PhotoAccess, this workshop will teach you how to use photography as a tool for documentation, observation, and expression through personal storytelling. All materials provided. Ticketholders will receive a zoom link to access this online event on Wednesday, 23 July 2023. Please contact the Gallery on +61 2 6240 6411 or young.people@nga.gov.au if you do not receive your viewing link.

National Gallery
New Collection
July 8th, 2023 - January 28th, 2024