Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nan Goldin’s unflinching portraits of New York’s 1980s demimonde are some of the most important photographs of our time. But it was film, not photography, that was the artist’s first calling. “I started taking pictures because I wanted to make films,” she said in a recent interview. “I found a way to make films through putting stills together, by making slideshows. Those are my films.”That early vision takes centre stage in This Will Not End Well, Goldin’s superb touring exhibition now open at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin after stops in Stockholm and Amsterdam. Billed as the first exhibition to frame Goldin as a filmmaker, it focuses exclusively on six slideshows. In the 1970s and early 1980s the artist projected her photographs as montages in nightclubs to friends, whom she elevated to the status of movie stars by choosing them as her subjects. As Goldin grew more established, many of these images were shown as single photographs or in books, but the slideshow format is one she returned to repeatedly, constantly re-editing these works throughout her career. All the slideshows here are unique, updated versions.Achingly beautiful and at times discomforting, the exhibition showcases both the grittiness and cinematic grandeur of Goldin’s oeuvre. Tales of love, sex, addiction and loss unfold to poignant soundtracks and voice-overs, tracing the now-familiar epic of the artist’s life; from her childhood in suburban Boston and her decadent years in Manhattan’s lower east side to her recent campaign for museums to cut ties with the Sackler family due to their connection to the opioid crisis. These dramas are enhanced by darkened screening rooms, which the architect Hala Wardé designed with Goldin to evoke queer clubs, underground cinemas or hospitals.Anchoring the show is “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” (1981-2022), the artist’s montage of almost 700 photographs capturing the pain and ecstasy of desire. Candid shots of couples in bars and bedrooms — smiling, sharing tender glances, locked in passionate embraces — play out against an eclectic soundtrack ranging from opera arias to the Velvet Underground and Petula Clark’s “Downtown”.But the highs soon give way to the lows. Lonely bodies spread out across crumpled sheets; Goldin, a survivor of domestic violence, stares at us defiantly with two black eyes; the open casket of a friend struck down by Aids. Here, as in many of the works on show, Goldin subverts the cosy associations of the slideshow — which typically conjures scenes of friends and family gathering around a Kodak projector to view holiday snaps — by confronting subjects polite society prefers to ignore.Interweaving themes of death, longing and abandonment, “The Ballad” is a moving tribute to all who have gone searching for romance and been burnt along the way. When an early version of the work was shown at the 1986 Whitney Biennial, it broke ground with its affecting blend of raw authenticity and cinematic techniques. Most striking is the way in which Goldin wields music to heighten the photographs’ narrative and emotional power. Tracks like Howlin’ Wolf’s “I Put a Spell on You”, with its possessive lyrics about a man bewitching his lover, amplify the work’s warnings against jealousy and obsession. Similarly in “Fire Leap” (2010-2022), a paean to childhood, images of kids donning Halloween costumes are paired with a children’s choir version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”, sharpening the bittersweet sting of lost innocence these images might evoke in adult viewers.This astute interplay between sound and image reaches its most phantasmagoric in two recent slideshows themed around drugs. “Sirens” (2019-20) blends the glamour of vintage European cinema and the edginess of experimental film to recreate the experience of intoxication. In clips cut from films by directors such as Fellini, Antonioni and Warhol, actresses appear as mythical “sirens” in transcendent states, their elegant movements set to ghostly whistling and ethereal strings in a score composed by Mica Levi. Who wouldn’t be seduced by the euphoria of getting high, the work seems to ask.But one only has to look at “Memory Lost” (2019-2021), an anxiety-riddled portrait of substance abuse and withdrawal, to see the dire consequences of such hedonism. Blurry images of empty pill bottles, soiled mattresses and desolate skies unfold to a haunting Schubert piano sonata and voice-overs recounting the claustrophobic experience of addiction: “It’s like being suffocated.”That Goldin has never been one to shy away from difficult topics was made clear at the exhibition’s opening, where she publicly condemned Israel’s war in Gaza and criticised what she described as Germany’s censorship of pro-Palestinian views. The show itself is a reminder that art and activism have been inseparable throughout her career, from her visceral documentation of the Aids crisis to the dedication of “Memory Lost” to Pain (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), the protest group Goldin founded in 2017 following her own struggle with addiction to the prescription opioid OxyContin.Goldin learned about the perils of silence and suppression at a young age. “Sisters, Saints and Sibyls” (2004-2022) is a requiem set to choral music for her older sister Barbara, whose defiance of the rigid social norms of the 1950s led to her parents institutionalising her. Originally created for the chapel of Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, the three-channel video is viewed here from a raised balcony. Barbara, dressed in all-white in old photographs, appears almost saintly in the triptych before us. The tone darkens with eerie shots of the suburban street where Goldin grew up before building to a crescendo with images of a railway and the deafening roar of a locomotive — Barbara died by suicide at age 18, lying down on train tracks.The experience instilled in Goldin an early mistrust of authority. It’s no wonder the artist gravitated towards free spirits — trans people, drag queens and outsiders — whom she captures with warmth and intimacy in “The Other Side” (1992-2021). Expert editing creates a multi-faceted picture of this diverse community; glittering shots of parades and drag scenes from Boston to Bangkok are as radiant as quieter moments, like the sumptuous simplicity of a friend seated at a kitchen table in a lime-green sweater beside a bowl of fruit. Amid the sea of dazzling costumes, one figure stands out in a casual T-shirt boldly declaring, “I Was There”.The slogan perfectly encapsulates the palpable immediacy of Goldin’s images. In both her life and art, the artist relentlessly champions honesty and directness, while never forgetting about romance and beauty.To April 6 at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, smb.museum; October 9-February 15 2026 at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, pirellihangarbicocca.org; March-June 2026 at Grand Palais, Paris, grandpalais.fr
