Nan Goldin began to take photographs seriously in 1971. Her slide show of seven hundred images set to music toured clubs in the Unites States and Europe in the mid 1980s. A series of these photographs was famously exhibited and published as The Ballad of Sexual Dependency in 1986. In 1988, after drug rehabilitation, she completed a harsh series of self-portraits and finished a series consisting of portraits of transvestites and transsexuals.
The Family of Nan, taken during the years 1990-92 is a series of Cibachrome prints of beloved people in her life. Some of them are hospitalized and dying of AIDS. The strength of Nan Goldin’s work lies in the emotional collaboration between the friends and lovers portrayed by her and herself.
From the exhibition: Recent Acquisitions (February 2 – April 14, 2002)