The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

From Strand Bookstore

A visual diary chronicling the struggle for intimacy and understanding between friends, family, and lovers - collectively described by photographer Nan Goldin as her "tribe." First published in 1986, this personal odysseyconsists of lush color photographs and a candid style that immediately produces the signs of an intense understanding of human differences...and the need to connect. 147p. Pap.

From the Publisher

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. First published in 1986, this reissue recognizes the persistent relevance and freshness of Nan Goldin's cutting-edge photography and its importance to an era ravaged by AIDS and drug addiction. Through an accurate and detailed record of her life, Ballad reveals Goldin's personal odyssey as well as a more universal understanding of the different languages men and women speak. In its ten years, the influence of Ballad on photography and other aesthetic realms has continually grown, making the work a contemporary classic. Nan Goldin's story of urban life on the fringe was the swan song of an era that reached its peak in the early eighties. Yet it has captured an important element of humanity which is transcendent: a need to connect.

Review

Kristine McKenna - Los Angeles Times Book Review
"...Goldin's gritty visual record of New York's bohemian community of the '70s and '80s dispels, on a purely visual level, the fantasy and illusion associated with romantic love. On a deeper level, however, fantasies of every stripe surely burn within all her subjects....Often depicted alone in cheap hotel rooms, Goldin's subjects seem to be at war with themselves, hungry for life, and willing to take whatever risks are necessary in the pursuit of it....A potent reminder of the fact that love is a learn-as-you-go process nobody ever masters..."

More about the book

Nan Goldin's intense color photographs charting the loss of innocence in New York's East Village, via the harrowing world of drugs, prostitution and various forms of sexual dependence. She calls this book "the diary I let people read."