Mixing an in-depth interview with slides of her career-defining work, this video presents the strategies and stakes of Nan Goldin's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency: "I didn't care about good photography, I cared about complete honesty," Goldin says. Certainly, from its elastic life as slideshow series exhibited across the globe, to its structured legacy as a photo book and collection of prints, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency underscores the camera's documentary function, offering not just enthralling compositions but proof of experience. Creating intimacy with rather than distance from her subjects, Goldin sought to "to show exactly what it was," whether that it was her friends, housemates, lovers, or the plague of AIDS that hit her community. Discussing Larry Clark's influence on her "saturated vision," the dueling desires for intimacy and autonomy that haunt human relationships, Goldin re-orients the dominant perspective on this vital work, setting the record crooked: "We were never marginalized. We were the world."

 

Directed by Emma Reeves

Shot by Eric Teti

Sound by Max Cooke

Edited by Tom Salvaggio

Make-up by Maud Laceppe at Streeters Agency

Thanks to Neal Franc