Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is an intensely unique record, established out of the designer’s personal occurrence throughout Boston, New York, Berlin, and elsewhere in the late 1970s, 1980s, and beyond.

Name behind a song in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera, Goldin’s Ballad is itself an essence of central opera; its lead—including the mural artist herself—are apprehend in romantic experience of intimacy and depletion. They incident rapture and suffering through sexual intercourse and drug use; they celebrate at dance nightclubs and link with their kids at home; and they ache from household cruelty and the devastate of AIDS.

Nan Goldin’s work signs the viewer up for a wild drug-induced ride through the 1980s. Heroin and love were the drugs of choice. Depicted in the exhibit’s main room was a selection of raw scenes of lust to loneliness. Goldin’s excellent manipulation of light allowed for sharp textures throughout each image, creating mini environments visitors could theoretically walk into. In Rise and Monty Kissing, you could feel the moment of walking through a crowded party, scanning the room, and spotting this scene laid out in front of you. Every image has this feeling of genuineness rooted in its raw lighting and composition. Many of the images were self-portraits of Nan, solo or including various lovers. With these scenes, viewers can gain a sense of connection with Nan through the episodes from her life she chooses to exhibit. We feel her pain and empathize with her story.

The other half of the MoMA exhibit included a 46-minute slideshow with partnering soundtrack. After sitting through a couple songs, its simple to see the strong relationship with the songs in the soundtrack and the images they presented. Each song’s lyrics and general tone transferred into that of their paired images. Long, emotion-filled rock songs with lyrics about sex, drugs and rock and roll paired with images of various partially absent individuals using heroin needles. Songs about female empowerment paired with images of early drag queens. With this interesting form of presentation, Goldin further allows viewers into her thoughts by providing them with a clue about her feelings on different aspects of her life through the songs chosen in this well formulated soundtrack.

In all, Goldin is inspiring in her ability to allow her audience into her head. She provides an experience that leaves viewers with a powerful insight into her story.

Nan Goldin, an American photographer, known for her stylish works. Goldin ran away from home when she was only 14. She lived with a group of young people who struggled with their lives and self-imposed exile in the United States. To record her own life, Goldin started to shoot real and messy lives of her close friends. As she said, “I photograph directly from my life. Those pictures come out of relationships, not observation” (MOMA). Therefore, those photographs were collected together and presented in slide form called “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.”

I visited her exhibition on Tuesday at MOMA. The first thought came to my mind was shock. All of her work featured LGBT-related themes, violence, illness, depression, and drugs.  As growing in a traditional family, I was resistant to those themes of nude and dark humanity. However, I started to observe something different among photographs while I was watching the slides of Godin’s work. This 45-minute slide show is set to a soundtrack. Different periods of figures were shown with different music. They lived in crazy and self-imposed exile society and tried to prove themselves to the public. In Goldin’s camera, those young people struggled with their own lives no matter what role of characters they played in that society. In this slide, Goldin used her camera to portray her friends’ experiences about childhood memory, fell in love with others, sexual abuse, relationship, marriage, fight, pregnant, children and until they died. Goldin astonished me not only she showed her and her friends’ real lives, but also she’s good at using light and create a better view of some dark and bad environment.

One photograph impressed me a lot is Goldin’s portrait. This portrait is named as “Nan one month after being battered.” Normally, photographers don’t put themselves into their cameras. In this photo, we can easily see that Goldin had a very bad experience at that time. Her bruise still did not go away after she got her boyfriend’s abuse one month later. As Goldin said, the reason she kept this photo was that she wanted to remind herself to not suffer again. From here, we can see Goldin’s photographs are showing her own privacy to the public by using this way of recording life. After finishing watching this slide show, I felt like I just peeped someone’s private diary. No matter how messy or dark the environment was, Goldin could always create some conditions to make the figures look better in her camera. Such as yellowish orange light, all the shadows on the figures, and strong sense of line and so on. Goldin is really good at taking a candid photograph because we can feel the figure’s emotions when we look at those photos.  To be a real life photographer, Goldin did it perfectly.

Nan Goldin

MOMA’s exhibit of Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependancy is very interesting to say the least. When you first walk in there is a display of a number of her works and a short description of the exhibit. The exhibit itself is mainly comprised of a video slide show of Goldin’s photographs.

Her photographs show a variety of what I would consider sub-topics under what she conveniently calls sexual dependency. The sub-topics include, sexuality (both male, female as well as the two together), family, drugs, and other depictions of the artists herself.

Most of her work seemed to be simple snapshots of people in their private lives. Simply put, all I saw was average people doing average things. In some photos the artist’s presence is obvious while in other her presence is less so. The candid photos, to me, were more powerful in showing the subject(s) in their element. Usually in their home, bathroom or other private living space. Other times Goldin would show people in adult entertainment workplaces such as bars or strip clubs.

Overall I would say that the umbrella topic of sexual dependency was very suitable. We as a people rely heavily on sex, drugs, family and any combination of the aforementioned. Nan Goldin’s work shows us the raw dirty, sexy reality of life in the city. People have sex and do drugs, love and leave their families both willingly and without the choice in the matter.

Some photos show the all-too-real emotions felt by her subjects who deal with these realities. Understanding that these emotions are real and stem from real situations that can happen to any one of us is really what I think Nan Goldin was attempting to show with her work.

Nan Goldin’s work is simple in its composition and quality but her works’ content is the true art here. I enjoyed seeing and feeling her photos for myself and I would recommend it to my friends to view as well.

Nan Goldin Paper

‘Ballad of sexual Dependency’_Sowon Jung

As a student who currently studies digital photography, Nan Goldin’s exhibition was a good opportunity to look at what the contemporary photography is and how the photographer took a self-portrait photography with various techniques. When I first stepped into the exhibition was kind of odd and much different what I expected. Because, for me it is difficult to fully understand contemporary art which is totally different from fine art.  However, I kept observing her works over and over and then, finally I was able to understand that sexual photography could be the art.

Among her various works, there were some photographs that caught my eyes. One was a Nan is hugging the guy, probably Brian who is her boyfriend. By looking at this photography, I felt somehow loneliness even though she is hugging the guy. Because, the mood of photography seems so cold and blue with the dark background. I was also wondering how she took a self-portrait within this kind of feeling. Because, I personally think photography is all about capturing one specific time with emotions at the moments. Therefore, I assume that she is very creative photographer who tried various techniques that no one would do before. Moreover, she redefines what the photography could do and what it could be as a mirror of oneself.

Another photograph I was interested in among her works was ‘Nan one month After being battered’. When I first saw this work, I was embarrassed because, I was wondering why she was battered, who did it to her, and why she wanted to take her self-portrait at this moment. As I mentioned before, contemporary art is sort of difficult to understand as art work. Therefore, I assume some viewers might feel upset and uncomfortable as same as I felt. It could depict her as the victim of domestic violence, and it does not seem attractive at all. However, In other words, this photograph is necessary to be seen because, it also captures how the domestic violence are dangerous which reflects prominent problem at this time. By that means, it also explains that we are all witness to its effects.

Not only the photographs, her photo slide show which was playing in the small dark room was also very impressive to me. From the show I felt as if the whole pictures show a person’s life time from birth to death. In the beginning of the show, the works were totally different from what I have seen outside. She captured peaceful and beautiful moment such as the view of village, pretty children, and nude body of pregnant women which could be beautiful as it is. However, as time goes by, the slide show became stark and dark by showing sexual gay, lesbian, heroin addicted people etc. Most photographs were shock to me, because I thought that taking these kind of pictures at this time could be sensation. Most photographer would like to take beautiful pictures but Nan was different. Despite of its uncomfortable affect, I could realize how people are nature without pretense and how Nan tried to tell the true story without any secret through her pictures.

Hamanot_NanGoldin

Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency exhibition is a personal narrative of her life, in pictures, which she shares with us. All the events are happening around Boston, New York, London, Chicago, Berlin and more in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Her subjects and herself are captured in intimate moments of love, lost and abuse. According to her “The diary is my form of control over my life. It allows me to obsessively record every detail. It enables me to remember.” In addition, she received Edward MacDowell Medal for an outstanding contribution to American culture and the arts.

The first part of the exhibition starts with the row of pictures that aren’t lined up, but placed in an organized chaos. It gives you an idea that the pictures will portray a struggle for intimacy and understanding between friends, family, and lovers. Right next to it is a glass display of her personal photos, from her picture and brief biography, her parents, friends and intimate pictures of her lovers. Not only the pictures show you the way American culture was during the 70’s and 80’s, but you get to know the artist on a personal level. She showed the sides of her life that weren’t all “rainbows and butterflies,” she shared her deepest, darkest secrets, such as abuse in a relationship.

The second part of the exhibition was a slide show of people that Nan was close with, that was accompanied by different sound traces. Her subjects were captured in their natural state, such as smoking, half dressed, using drugs or in intimate positions. The sound matched the pictures which made it more real, more raw. You could either feel the intensity of the moment  or try and see why that, particular, sound was chosen. In some way the background music made the pictures look more alive.

Wendy Zhang

Art 4900

I think the exhibition of Nan Goldin The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is very interesting. It basically is a slideshow of Nan Goldin’s photographs, which contain a lot of sex, drugs and love. In my opinion, she expressed the emotions very well, not only in each individual photo but also as a whole composition.

I took a very quick look of the photographs that displayed outside and headed right into the theater to watch the whole documentation. I think it is very remarkable that she separated the photos by gender, sexual preferences, age and also the stories happened behind the photos.

The most impressive part to me is the beginning, the section of girls looking into mirror, staying rooms alone, and enjoying the bath time. I felt connected as a girl who has been through this stage of my life, feeling lost and confused during the high school period, finding out the beauty of my body as a grown up girl, and also wondering about the love. I was extremely attracted by the bodies of the young ladies in Nan Goldin’s pictures, such as the brightening skins and also the prefect curves shape. It’s the natural beauty that no one could take away but time, and Nan Goldin recorded them forever in the photos.

On the other hand, I think different people looking into the same photo would have variety understanding of the stories. Some stories are very well told by looking at the first sight. For example, I remember of one photo that a couples are siting at somewhere like a bar since the background is very dark. They are smiling to the camera but the audiences can clearly see the reflection of the tears insides the girls eye also a little bit in the boys. I started to wondering maybe they are talking about future, or being separate from each other, or could be they just made peace from the fight. Freezing the stories into one simple picture, I think that is how Nan Goldin made the whole The Ballad of Sexual Dependency fascinating.

Visit the Museum of Modern Art to see the Nan Goldin exhibit, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.

Write a one-page paper on the exhibit and post it in the category, Nan Goldin.

Due Thursday, August 11.