The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

Gagosian is pleased to announce an exhibition of all 126 photographs from Nan Goldin's genre-defining photobook The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. The presentation marks the first time the entire body of work will be shown in the United Kingdom. The exhibition coincides with the fortieth anniversary of the volume, which Goldin described at the time as "the diary I let people read." Created between 1973 and 1986, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is an incisive reflection on gender, intimacy, and power, widely regarded as Goldin's magnum opus. Forty years after its publication, the photographs not only define the era of downtown New York in which they were made but have also influenced decades of visual culture and artists around the world. Shot in the vibrancy of real life and everyday spaces, Goldin's formally and chromatically radical approach upended the status quo and helped to move photography from the margins into the center of contemporary art discourse. The Ballad was Goldin's manifesto and opening salvo in a decades-long career that asserted a new potential for the photographic image.