The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a 1985 slide show exhibition and 1986 artist's book publication of photographs taken between 1979 and 1986 by photographer Nan Goldin.[1][2] It is an autobiographical document of a portion of New York City's No wave music and art scene, the post-Stonewall gay subculture of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the heroin subculture of the Bowery neighborhood, and Goldin’s personal family and love life.[3]
Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said it "remains a benchmark for all other work in a similar confessional vein."[4] Lucy Davies, writing in The Telegraph in 2014, said it "would come to influence a generation of fledgling photographers, who fell into her truth-telling wake. She was credited by none other than Bill Clinton with inventing ‹heroin chic›".[5]
Details
The title The Ballad of Sexual Dependency was taken from a song in Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera.[6]
It was originally devised as a slideshow set to the music of Velvet Underground, James Brown, Nina Simone, Charles Aznavour, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Petula Clark among others, to entertain Goldin's friends.[4][2] It "portrayed her friends – many of them part of the hard-drugs subculture on New York's lower east side – as they partied, got high, fought and had sex. It was first publicly shown at the Whitney Biennial in New York in 1985 and was published as a photobook the following year."[4]
The snapshot aesthetic book was first published with help from Marvin Heiferman, Mark Holborn, and Suzanne Fletcher in 1986.
Selected solo exhibitions
- 1985: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, screening. Whitney Museum of American Art.[4]
- 1987: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, screening. Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France.[1]
- 1997: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, exhibition and screening, Théâtre Antique. Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France.
- 2009: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, exhibition and screening, Guest of honour at Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France.
Publications
- The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.
- New York, NY: Aperture, 1986. ISBN 978-0-89381-236-2.
- New York, NY: Aperture, 2012. Hardback ISBN 978-1-59711-208-6. Paperback ISBN 978-1-59711-210-9.
References
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- ↑ Brecht, Bertolt. "Three Penny Opera." Act II, song 12.
