Nan Goldin's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

Documenting the intimate lives of friends and lovers, as well as trusting acquaintances from bar scenes in New York and Boston, photographer Nan Goldin compiled hundreds of images made over two decades into The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Presented in its original, 35mm slide-show format, the images seem to invite us into a world that is universally human yet highly specific. “There is a popular notion that the photographer is by nature a voyeur, the last one invited to the party,” Goldin has said. “But I’m not crashing, this is my party. This is my family, my history.” The title of the work is taken from a song in Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera; its soundtrack features New York bands like The Velvet Underground, whose song lyrics evoke themes explored within the photographs.