Gagosian is hosting the genre-defining masterpiece that changed the course of photographic history: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Opened on January 13 to mark the 40th anniversary of the book, this exhibition holds historic significance as the first time all 126 photographs have been presented together in the United Kingdom.
Shot by Nan Goldin between 1973 and 1986, these frames are, in the artist’s own words, “a diary people are allowed to read.” Goldin does not select her subjects; she simply presses the shutter from the very heart of her own life and relationships. These are not the notes of an observer — they are the raw expression of a soul breathing, loving, hurting, and struggling to survive inside that world. To look at this exhibition today is not only to witness a period, but also to feel the mourning and desire of a lost generation that is no longer among us.
A Chromatic Manifesto and a Vanished World
Goldin’s technical approach was a brutal hammer blow to the sterile, staged photographic conventions of the time. With the vividness of real life — those ramshackle rooms where every day unfolded — she created a formally and chromatically radical aesthetic. This approach lifted photography out of the margins of the art world and placed it squarely at the center of contemporary art discourse. First published in 1986, the book is now in its 23rd printing and remains one of the most influential publications in the history of photography.
An Operatic Narrative: From Nightclubs to Galleries
The Ballad was born long before the book — as a slide show performed in New York nightclubs, accompanied by various soundtracks. This operatic quality is still palpable in the exhibition’s installation. The sharp transitions between images, recurring motifs, and moments that question gender, power, and intimacy do not transport the viewer back to 1980s New York so much as they lead straight to the unchanging human longing for connection and the pain of rupture.
Exhibition Details
Artist: Nan Goldin
Venue: Gagosian Davies St, 17-19 Davies Street, London W1K 3DE
Closing Date: March 21, 2026
Visiting Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 – 18:00
Even after forty years, Nan Goldin’s shattering series still slaps us in the face with how relevant the difficulty of attachment and the yearning for transformation remain. If you’re in London this weekend, make your way to Davies Street and allow yourself to be invited into Goldin’s world — that unsettling yet mesmerizing feeling of being let in.
