Brian
Rope | Photography
The ballad
of sexual dependency | Nan Goldin
National
Gallery of Australia | 8 Jul 2023 – 28 Jan 2024
In 1985, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency was a slide show, in 1986 it became an artist's book publication of photographs taken between 1979 and 1986. New York Times art critic Andy Grundberg described it as “an artistic masterwork that tells us …. about the times in which we live.”
Now it is a collection of 126 Cibachrome colour prints acquired by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) – the last available of just ten copies. It is an autobiographical document of a portion of New York City's avant-garde music and visual art scene, the gay subculture of the late 70s/early 80s, and the artist's personal family and love life.
The artwork’s title is taken from a song in Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera, tying in with its theme of love and sex, dissecting how romance and infatuation can distract people from their self-interests and larger societal duties and obligations. The great Australian performer Robyn Archer includes the ballad in her repertoire. As I began writing this, she was performing in Canberra – perhaps singing it right then!
This defining photographic artwork is by the internationally renowned American photographer, artist and activist Nan Goldin whose work often explores LGBT subcultures, moments of intimacy, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the opioid epidemic.
Aged 13, Goldin left home and hooked up with a group of young people focussed on drugs, violence and sex. Handed a camera at the age of 16, she discovered photography and began using it to document, from 1979 to 1986, subjects like post-punk music, post Stonewall gay subculture, and Bowrey’s hard drug subculture. Her images depicted violence, belligerent couples and drug usage. Among the people she photographed, were the actress Cookie Mueller and the artist Greer Lankton.
Just as Goldin was emerging as a photographer, she became truly addicted to drugs. She spent a great deal of time not seeing daylight - whilst snorting drugs. She got sober at a rehabilitation clinic near Boston in 1988, then returned to New York to discover many friends had contracted AIDS.
In her “snapshots” of people - partying, in bars, being sexually intimate, on beaches, and much more, she recorded their positive and negative experiences. Many did not live then traditional lifestyles. Numerous people appear in many images, including Brian, her longtime boyfriend. Most of her subjects died by the 1990s, due to AIDS or drug use. Goldin says photography saved her life. She seeks to pass on her salvation through her art and her activism. In 2021, she wrote “If I can help one person survive, that’s the ultimate purpose of my work.”
Goldin refers to the ballad as her ‘public diary’, stating that her photographs ‘come out of relationships, not observation’. The work’s overriding themes explore the tensions in relationships in which all genders struggle to find a common language.
Her documentary, snapshot style laid bare her life in what we know as a family album - but one that was put on public view. It shows her alongside friends and lovers as they hung out (in the bathroom, in bed, at Evelyne’s bar, on the beach, on Tin Pan Alley), fell in and out of love and had children. The ballad is as much evidence of what her community lost, as it is a record of a past time.
The level of intimacy revealed in many of these images is extraordinary. The level of trust from her subjects is extraordinary. Others have captured intimate photographs of partners – Alfred Stieglitz made nude portraits of Georgia O’Keefe - but I cannot think of any other photographer who has revealed as much of friends and lovers as Goldin.
I asked curator Anne O’Hehir if she had a favourite amongst the collection. She laughed, then spoke about the most famous photograph from The Ballad - a self-portrait showing Goldin’s face badly bruised, one of her eyes almost sealed shut. Boyfriend Brian had read her diaries and become so angry he beat her almost to the point of blindness. The image has been described as “the ultimate example of photography as a means of both survival and catharsis.” She took the photograph to remind herself to never go back to him.
O’Hehir also noted that Suzanne’s closeness is revealed by the fact that she is in almost every image – until she disappears. We don’t know what happened to her. Cookie is also in lot of images, but not as much as Suzanne.
It would be impossible for me to select just one favourite but, amongst numerous others, I particularly like Nan and Brian in bed, French Chris on the convertible, and Greer on the bed.
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Nan and Brian in bed, New York City, 1983 from the series The ballad of sexual dependency, 1973-86, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 2021 in celebration of the National Gallery of Australia's 40th anniversary, 2022 © Nan Goldin |
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French Chris on the convertible, New York City, 1979 from the series The ballad of sexual dependency, 1973-86, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 2021 in celebration of the National Gallery of Australia's 40th anniversary, 2022 © Nan Goldin |
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Greer on the bed, New York City, 1983 from the series The ballad of sexual dependency, 1973-86, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/Canberra, purchased 2021 in celebration of the National Gallery of Australia's 40th anniversary, 2022 © Nan Goldin |
In addition to the prints, the exhibition includes other items, as this installation shot shows:
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| Installation view, Nan Goldin the ballad of sexual dependency, National Gallery of Australia, 2023. Photo by Karlee Holland |
This an exhibition which everyone with an interest in photography should
see. The images are varied, sometimes curious and always interesting. They pour
out passion. Viewer discretion is advised - it is not suitable for children
under the age of 15.
If you are unable to visit the exhibition, then at least find an opportunity to watch All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a 2022 American documentary biographical film about Goldin told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, and ground-breaking photography. This R18+ movie is streaming exclusively here.
This review (in an abbreviated form) was first published by Canberra City News on 9 July 2023 here. It is also available on the author’s blog here.