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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)
“What becomes a legend?” someone used to ask. I wouldn’t know. If the question becomes “Who becomes a legend?,” it seems to me that Nan Goldin is just about there. Having recently being named the Art World’s “Most Influential Figure” in the ArtReview Power 100 on top of the Academy Award Nominated Best Documentary she was the subject of, she’s long been one of the most influential Photographers working today- especially on other Photographers. When I think of all the those I’ve spoken with who named influences, her name surfaced as often as anyone else’s1. Yet, one of her most influential realms and biggest innovations, the Slideshow, has gone largely overlooked historically to this point. In her Slideshows and Films, Nan Goldin presents her work as she wants it seen and experienced.
In 2022, the Artist collaborated with Moderna Museet, Stockholm on a retrospective of her 5 Slideshows and 2 Films titled Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well, a traveling show that began at Moderna Museet in October, 2022, and will be touring in Europe until it finishes in Milan in 2025. Accompanying the show, Ms. Goldin, the Moderna Museet and Steidl have released a book of the same name, with the Artist commissioning the majority of the 20 texts included in it. Published in October, 2022, copies didn’t show up here until early 2023, then the first edition promptly sold out. A second went into print last month- 13 months after the first, the fastest recent PhotoBook reprint I can think of this side of Petra Collins’s Coming of Age, and a testament to Nan Goldin’s popularity.
“I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
Yeah, oh
I recommend walkin’ around naked in your living room
Yeah”-*
Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well is a unique PhotoBook in my experience. Of all the PhotoBooks I’ve seen I can’t think of one that is largely drawn from Slideshows (5 of the 7 works included). That’s probably because very few Artists not named William Kentridge, or any Photographers I can think of, have done a body of them. Mr. Kentridge’s largely consist of his remarkable Drawings and, longer or shorter, are more usually considered Films. Between the covers, the book is gripping. The narratives the Slideshows & Films contain range from her childhood and her sister Barbara’s horrific teenage suicide, to hanging out with her friends (many of who are familiar to her fans), and to the nightmare of addiction.
Nan Goldin began using Slideshows shortly after relocating to NYC in 1978. Her first, called Ballads of Sexual Dependency at the time, was included in the legendary Times Square Show, 1980, that was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s first public show, and also included the work of Jane Dickson, among others. It consisted of upwards of 700 Photographs and had a soundtrack. In 1986, the Artist & Aperture Foundation whittled those down to the 127 images published in the now classic PhotoBook of the same name, which was most recently reprinted for the twenty-first time.
In 2016-7 MoMA showed The Ballad of Sexual Dependency Slideshow (which lasts almost 42 minutes), a gallery of Photographic Prints from the series, and ephemera including vintage posters for early presentations of the work (shown above), when it was called Ballads of Sexual Dependency, from Ms. Goldin’s collection. It leads off This Will Not End Well with 60 images, with Steidl’s Press Release saying, “The book retains the presentation of the slide shows by showing all images in the same format on a black background and sequenced as they are in the sources.” I don’t know how many others, besides myself, would have loved to have seem ALL the images of all the Slideshows included in order in the book. That would have been a huge book. What is included is hard to argue with, given the Artist’s involvement. Even though the Slideshows are not complete (with selected stills from the Films included), the book is a remarkable chance to see these works in stop frame, which provides a chance to study the individual Photographs and to study the sequence, which move by quickly on the screen, at least in the sections reproduced.
The Other Side (Slideshows, 16:45 in duration), All by Myself (Slideshow, about 6 minutes), Sisters, Saints and Sibyls (Three-channel video, 35 minutes), Fire Leap (Slideshow, about 15 minutes), Scopophilia (about 23 1/2 minutes), Sirens (Single-channel video, 16 minutes), Memory Lost (Slideshow, 24 1/2 minutes), and a final section titled “Missing,” follow. Each one will touch the heart, and linger in the mind indefinitely. This Will Not End Well was not a book I suspect many saw coming. But now that it’s here it earns its place as another excellent book among Nan Goldin’s classic books. Not one of which I’d part with.
“You live, you learn
You love, you learn
You cry, you learn
You lose, you learn
You bleed, you learn
You scream, you learn”-*
I am not optimistic about how much Photography will be considered “Art” in a few hundred years when all the dust settles. It, and Film, are relatively young mediums, and so, so much Photography has been done. Of that that survives, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Nan Goldin’s work make the cut. Such is the power of her work.
Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well is an Also Recommended NoteWorthy PhotoBook for 2023. The full list is here.
*-Soundtrack for this piece is “You Learn” by Alan’s Morissette from her masterpiece, Jagged Little Pill, 1995. I saw Alanis perform it live on her ’95 tour with the great Shirley Manson & Garbage opening! But, seeing her sing it here in São Paulo last month gave me chills. In this inferior quality audience recording (her official video is here), she sounds like she’s almost holding back so she can hear the massive crowd singing her lyrics back to her. WHAT a feeling that must be! I’ve played in front of appreciative crowds, but to see and hear the effect your Music has had on so many people has got to be overwhelming. I imagine Nan Goldin is, also, getting a good deal of love coming back to her from all of those who relate to, and love, her work.
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