Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
Events Bakery Hill, Ballarat, Victoria
26 Apr 2024 to 2 Jun 2024 Once Only Event
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. You 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.
The Art Gallery of Ballarat are the exclusive Victorian venue for this exhibition on tour from the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Facilities
Internet Access
Free WifiRates
Event Dates
Once Only Event
26 Apr 2024 to 2 Jun 2024