Nan Goldin Honored by The Bailey House 2023
Kathleen at the Bowery Bar, Nan Goldin — 1995Last month, we at Isadore&Dunn had the tremendous fortune of attending the Art House 2023 Art Auction in the Bowery Hotel, honoring Nan Goldin.
The event was really something special; It was amazing to see so many artist and so many people there who care about housing, AIDS outreach, the queer community, New York City, and the arts.
The event this year raised over $200,000 to support housing, healthcare and protections for vulnerable groups here in NYC. A number surely increased by the tenacious auctioneering and encouragement of Sharon Stone, who presented the award to Goldin.
Stone has a special appreciation for Goldin, due to her own experience of living in New York City early in her career modeling; and seeing and knowing the queer community as well as witnessing AIDS affect this community in such a devastating fashion. She also cares a lot, just like Goldin, about stopping the predatory practices of the pharmaceutical industry that has in recent years exacerbated and profited off of excellerating promotion and prescribing these harmful drugs. Stone, like so many others, has been touched by this expanding problem in the United states of the Opioid Crisis.
Couple in Bed in Chicago — 1977 (printed 1999)The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
Goldin’s work, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, was a work that she created as a slideshow with accompanying music. Photos that she began taking when she was 16 and continuously added to and updated. Revising the playlist and images shown, a living changing work of art that began for Goldin with an obsession with memory.
The show was part of the 1985 - Whitney Biennial.
Aperture magazine did an interview with Goldin about the the work here: article in Aperture - Summer 86
From the Aperture Mag Interview:
Is the ballad ever finished?
It’s my ‘leaves of grass’, constantly updated and revised
The work was always a direct offshoot of my life. I have a need to remember everything. The photography comes from that need.
—Nan Goldin
Some Songs from the show:
Memories - Dean Martin
She Fights Back - Yoko Ono
Fais Moi Mal Johnny - Boris Vien
Don’t Make me over - Dionne Warwick
Downtown - Petula Clark
My world is an empty world without you - The Supremes
(Shown to accompany photos of men alone masturbating)
The Hug, Nan Goldin — 1980All the Beauty And the Bloodshed
Earlier this year Goldin released a film with HBO that tells the story of her fight against these pharmaceutical companies where she has a unique power and sway: With Art Museums and Galleries.
Documentary about Goldin’s work life and activism specifically about fighting pharma companies funding museums.
Its become more widely understood that much of philanthropy is about bad corporate actors laundering their reputation (see Anand Giridharadas book on the subject here)
Documentary film about her fight against pharma funding museums
Directed by Laura Poitras
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed available on Max now.
Goldin spent her life recording people around her, often outsiders, artists, and importantly the queer and drag community. She has such a rich archive of moments and people in her body of work. Often completely naturalistically, meaning here using minimal or no staging, not adding or modifying light. The images are raw and pure and honest.
The affect of this is very humanizing and important for so many people from different backgrounds.
Always incredible work — Behind the Camera and in the Political Arena.
Brian With The Flintstones, Nan Goldin - 1981‘I used to think that I could never lose anyone if I photographed them enough.
In fact, my pictures show me how much I’ve lost’—Nan Goldin
