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Nan Goldin: Stories Retold
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On view through March 30, 2008 at the Caroline Wiess Law Building
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Nan Goldin, Sisters, Saints, and Sibyls , 2004
The MFAH, gift of Nina and Michael Zilkha in honor of Frances and Peter C. Marzio; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Nan Goldin: Stories Retold frames Goldin´s career with two room-size installations: an updated and unique version of The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1980-2006/2007), Goldin´s magnum opus, and Sisters, Saints, and Sibyls (2004), which tells the story of three women, inspired by the life and suicide of the artist´s older sister, Barbara. Also featured in the exhibition will be an important series of unique grids created over the past seven years, Goldin´s monumental Tokyo Spring Fever grid (1994-95), and iconic individual images from across the artist´s career.
Since the early 1970s, Nan Goldin has created a vast body of work evolved from the informality and directness of snapshots. Employing light, color, and intimate framing of performance and film, Goldin broke down traditional barriers between photography, cinema, and installation art. Goldin´s radical Ballad of Sexual Dependency (initially realized between the years 1980-86) was first seen in New York´s downtown alternative spaces as a home movie, with Goldin running the projector and many of its subjects in the audience. The version of Ballad presented in Nan Goldin: Stories Retold is itself a retelling of the original Ballad. Goldin extends her narrative to embrace new images, while remaining true to her original storyline.
The passion of Ballad is matched by Goldin´s brilliant Sisters, Saints, and Sibyls. Using the latest advances in film, video, and sound technology, Goldin weaves together three stories across three screens: the martyrdom of the early Christian Saint Barbara; the desperate life of her sister Barbara against the backdrop of the Goldin family´s middle-class home life in Maryland; and Goldin´s own painful exploration of her life, addiction, and recovery. Accompanied by Goldin´s plainspoken narration, Sisters, Saints, and Sibyls traces a complex family history that travels from innocence to chaos, betrayal and in the end, redemption. Sisters, Saints, and Sibyls was purchased jointly in spring 2007 by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
The essentially linear narratives of Ballad and Sisters, Saints, and Sibyls are complemented in the exhibition by Goldin´s remarkable grid compositions that offer a different approach to storytelling. Goldin uses the grid format to link together images that range across time and space, creating scenarios that are full of incident and narrative fragments. Among the grids of view will be the MFAH´s Tokyo Spring Fever and recent grid compositions of extraordinary intimacy as Goldin focuses on close friends and family across several generations. Many of these photographs will be seen for the first time in Houston.
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This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Generous funding is provided by:
Mr. and Mrs. James R. Crane
The Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation
The Margaret Cooke Skidmore Exhibition Endowment
Related Events:
Exhibition Lecture: Nan Goldin: Stories Retold
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Thursday, March 6, 2008 6:30 PM
Members Daytime Preview
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Saturday, November 17, 2007 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Patron-Plus Members Preview
At the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Friday, November 16, 2007 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
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