“This Will Not End Well” is an ongoing solo exhibition of Nan Goldin’s film work. Organised by Moderna Museet, Stockholm, the show is currently hosted by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and will run there until 28 January 2024 (the following locations include Berlin, Milan and Paris). If the title carries a dose of uncertainty about what awaits behind the exhibition doors, you can be sure it will bring a unique experience.
“This Will Not End Well”, named after the book published in November 2022, presents Goldin’s intensely introspective work of slideshows, making it the artist’s first exhibition as a filmmaker. “I have always wanted to be a filmmaker. My slideshows are films made up of stills”, Goldin says of her practice. Her work, presented as six separate narratives, has one core – her personal life reflection.
Nan Golin’s story through slideshows and videos
Nan Goldin is a well-known photographer and multi-layered figure in contemporary art. Born in Washington D.C. (1953) to a middle-class Jewish family, she grew up living in foster homes. Her biographical story was extensively pictured in the documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” (2022, dir. Laura Poitras), where the chronologically presented portrait of family trauma, art life and addiction climaxes with Nan’s recent activist efforts. After rehab and recovery from opioid addiction, once prescribed to her as painkillers after surgery, Goldin started a social campaign called “Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (P.A.I.N.)” and site-specific protests. The primary purpose of her engagement in the initiative was aimed against the Sackler family, owners of the pharmaceutical company manufacturing opioid-based medicines. As a wealthy family, the Sacklers were donors to many prominent and renowned art institutions, with some of Nan Golidn’s works being part of collections. Her protests against the opioid money contribution to the art sector took place in various museums and art spaces, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Louvre in Paris, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, resulting in fundamental changes, such as the rejection of a £1 million donation by the Tate group of British art galleries.
“This Will Not End Well” unfolds Nan Golin’s story and work in a way she always wanted it to be experienced- through slideshows and videos. Although retrospective, the exhibition’s narrative is not structured chronologically but thematically.
Drag queens and the AIDS epidemic
The space, designed by Hala Wardé, consists of 6 cinema-like halls freely scattered around the Stedelijk -1 gallery. Black curtains, textiles, and embroidered details offer visitors an impressively cinematic exhibition experience.
Her attempts at photography began in her teenage years when she met David Armstrong, a well-known American photographer, foremost her friend and her first model. As he began performing as a drag, Nan was introduced to and mesmerised by the universe of drag queens. She perceived drag as a “third gender that made more sense than the other two,” as she explained in her documentary, “I’ll Be Your Mirror”.
The slideshows “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” (1981–2022) and “The Other Side” (1992– 2021) tell the story of Golin’s role in addressing social topics, the community of LGBTQ+, drag queens and the AIDS epidemic. Pictures of her loved ones and friends are presented in the most intimate, therefore truthful form, giving a glimpse into the American bohemian community of the 80s and 90s.
My work originally came from the snapshot aesthetic. People take them out of love, and they take them to remember—people, places, and times. They’re about creating a history by recording a history. And that’s exactly what my work is about.
“The Ballad of Sexual Dependency”, called Goldin’s magnum opus, consists of seven hundred pictures, re-edited and updated over the years. With portraits, images of beds, bedrooms, and vibrant music in the background, this slideshow is “the diary I let people read,” says Goldin. She was taking these photos so people and places would never be lost, and now they just vividly show how AIDS has decimated communities, in this case, Goldin’s Family of Choice. “The Ballad is dedicated to all the friends I’ve lost.”, she notes.
In “The Other Side”, a series named after the bar in Boston, Nan Goldin explores gender non-conformism and the way to freedom of her trans friends. Full of portraits accompanied by a well-complied soundtrack, this slideshow was revolutionary in fine art photography. Goldin has not only photographed the community of outsiders; she was part of it. She dissolved any existing boundaries between the photographer and the subject by going through the same struggles and sharing the same hopes and dreams. “I want to show exactly what my world looks like, without glamorisation, without glorification.” Photographing her own life, Nan captured its deep intimacy and integrity.
The pictures in this book are not of people suffering gender dysphoria but rather expressing gender euphoria. They are truly revolutionary; they are the real winners in the battle of the sexes because they have stepped out of the ring.
Sisters, Saints and Sibyls
Tracing back to the early years with “Fire Leap” (2010–2022), Nan Goldin explores the theme of children, whose unadulterated instinct for freedom and innocence “reminded her of her first muses: drag queens”. With songs sung only by kids, “Fire Leap” highlights Goldin’s fascination with their “autonomy” and the full spectrum of emotions and potential. Her own childhood and family tragedy, which happened when Nan was 11, is introduced to the visitors in “Sisters, Saints and Sibyls” (2004–2022), a tribute to her sister and “all rebellious women struggling to survive in society”. The photographer touches on the social issue of suicide committed by her older sister, Barbara. After years of struggles and many visits to mental institutions, 18-year-old Barbara decided to take her own life, which Nan saw as “an act of immense will”. Although Nan was very close to her and could see what might have led Barbara to make such a decision as suicide, she eventually lost the actual memories of her sister. “I remember my version of her, of the things she said, of the things she meant to me. But I don’t remember the tangible sense of who she was. I don’t ever want to lose the real memory of anyone again”. “Sisters, Saints and Sibyls” is presented differently from the other slideshows at the exhibition. Walking upstairs to the balcony, visitors take a bird’s eye view of three simultaneously playing screens. Unlike other rooms, with a perspective from a certain height and the voiceover instead of music in the background, the spatial representation of this theme emphasises its importance in Nan Goldin’s life and artistic path.
All of her stories and their components led Nan into drug ecstasy and further addiction. Drugs and the journey through the withdrawal thematically tie together the last two slideshows presented at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. “Sirens” (2019–2020), the first work of Goldin made entirely of found footage, represents the initial stage of intoxication by stimulants and the ecstatic sensations of being high. Blurred pictures, together with the composition of Mica Levi, fuse the palette of experiences, conveying Goldin’s interpretation of her journey to addiction. Devoured by drugs like Sinrens tempted sailors in Greek mythology, Nan, at one point, decided to end her addiction. “Memory Lost” (2019–2021) speaks about the withdrawal. This slideshow shows almost no people, and if present, they are photographed in the context of space. With a lot of focus on landscape and architecture- exterior and interior, Goldin emphasises the contrast between being stuck and feeling freedom and says, “Drugs set me free, and then they became my prison”. Together with the voice recordings, “Memory Lost” brings a firmly intimate perspective of the struggle and pain of addiction.
Breaking down taboos
Her further opioid addiction, rehab and activism around that topic tie together the significance of her as a public figure in the realm of art and culture. From her first published work (“Ivy Wearing a Fall, Boston“, 1973), Nan Golin breaks down taboos and confidently raises her voice in the context of the minorities and socially excluded. In November 2023, during the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, she cancelled the project with the New York Times because of its “complicity with Israel” and took part in a demonstration at the Statue of Liberty together with members of Jewish Voice for Peace– New York City. Her work presented at “This Will Not End Well” at Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam gives visitors a comprehensive insight into Nan Goldin’s art. The exhibition touches on her most significant and personal work, thus becoming a unique way to introduce the photographer to those who did not know her and broadening awareness among those who already knew Nan Goldin’s work and story.
*Disclaimer: “This exhibition covers themes including suicide, domestic violence and drug addiction.”
