This Will Not End Well by Nan Goldin at Pirelli HangarBicocca

This Will Not End Well is the first exhibition dedicated to the work of Nan Goldin as a filmmaker. While the title of the exhibition may seem dark and foreboding, it is also full of ironic humour and warmth that characterize Goldin's art.

Overview

The Italian exhibition of Nan Goldin's work reunites the biggest corpus of slideshows ever presented together, featuring two additional works, displayed in a museum context for the first time in Europe, alongside a new commission, an immersive sound installation that resonate the emotional impact of Goldin’s installations. The retrospective is installed in unique buildings designed by Hala Wardé, an architect who frequently works with Goldin. Each building is designed in response to the specific piece. Together they constitute a village.

The exhibition is comprised of: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1981–2022) her magnum opus; The Other Side (1992– 2021) a historical portrait produced as an homage to her trans friends whom she photographed from 1972 to 2010; Sisters, Saints, Sibyls (2004–2022) a testament to the trauma of families and suicide; Fire Leap (2010–2022) a foray into the world of children; Memory Lost (2019–2021) a claustrophobic journey through drug withdrawal; and Sirens (2019–2020) a trip into drug ecstasy. In Milan, the installation Sisters, Saints, Sibyls (2004–2022) will be presented inside the “Cubo,” a space whose dimensions and ceiling height—rising over 20 meters—closely resemble the architectural nature and verticality of La Chapelle de la Salpêtrière in Paris, where the work was originally commissioned and shown in 2004. The installation at Pirelli HangarBicocca will be restaged in a form faithful to the original, including the sculptural elements, visible from an elevated viewing platform.
For the exhibition in Pirelli HangarBicocca two additional slideshows will be included: You Never Did Anything Wrong (2024), Goldin’s first abstract work, born from an ancient myth that an eclipse is caused by animals stealing the sun, is a poetic meditation on life, death and the natural cycles that connect all beings. And Stendhal Syndrome (2024), based on six different myths from Ovid’s Metamorphosis that are brought to life by Goldin’s portraits of her friends, in a visual dialogue across time between the artist’s personal experience and her photographs of paintings and sculptures from museums around the world.
Furthermore, the retrospective in the Navate will open with a new sound installation by the experimental sound art collective Soundwalk Collective, conceived in close collaboration with the artist as a prelude that guides visitors into Goldin’s symbolic village of slideshows.

Nan Goldin (born in Washington D.C. in 1953) is one of the most high-profile artists of our time. Her work’s exploration of the human experience is legendary and has profoundly influenced subsequent generations. Her first work, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, documents life in Provincetown, New York, Berlin and London beginning in the 1970s and 80s and up to the present day. Goldin photographed the world of her inner circle of creative, bohemian friends with raw tenderness. Her photographs give us snapshots of intimacy and coupling, the quotidian and wild parties, and the struggle between autonomy and dependency.

Of the generation whose experiences were defined by the freedom of life before AIDS and an alternative world outside normative society, Goldin’s work also stands as a document of the times. Around 1980 Goldin began presenting her slideshows in various clubs and public venues in New York, as well as at underground cinemas and film festivals in Europe. She updated and reedited her slideshow every time and used multiple projectors, which she operated against the background of an eclectic soundtrack. Goldin’s ability to revisit these slideshows has since formed the core of her artistic practice. Over the past 40 years Goldin has produced a dozen different slideshows – from portraits of her friends to accounts of traumatic family events. Since then, she has added elements into her works such as moving images, voices and archival materials. Alongside Goldin’s influence on art and the art world, it is also difficult to think of today’s fashion and advertising photography without reflecting on her ground-breaking paradigms of visual expression.

Admission to the exhibition is free and online reservation guarantees priority access in the selected time slot. Members have priority access even without reservation.

Curated by Fredrik Liew. The presentation at Pirelli HangarBicocca is curated by Roberta Tenconi with Lucia Aspesi.

Exhibition organized by Moderna Museet in collaboration with Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milano, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin and Grand Palais Rmn, Paris.