Nan Goldin – The Ballad of Sexual Dependency – Reprint

Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a visual diary chronicling the struggle for intimacy and understanding between friends, family, and lovers—collectively described by Goldin as her “tribe.” Her work describes a world that is visceral, charged, and seething with life. As Goldin writes, “Real memory, which these pictures trigger, is an invocation of the color, smell, sound, and physical presence, the density and flavor of life.”

Through an accurate and detailed record of her life, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency reveals Goldin’s personal odyssey as well as a more universal understanding of the different languages men and women speak, and the struggle between autonomy and dependency.

First published in 1986, this reissue recognizes the persistent relevance and freshness of Nan Goldin’s cutting-edge photography. Over the past twenty-five years, the influence of Ballad on photography and other aesthetic realms has continually grown, making the work a contemporary classic.

This new edition of Ballad has been printed using new scans and separations created by master-separator Robert Hennessey from Goldin’s original transparencies, rendering them with unparalleled sumptuousness and impact.

For more on Nan Goldin and The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, see:

· The Guardian
· The Paris Review
· MoMA
· BOMB Magazine
· ASX