«The Ballad of Sexual Dependency» and «Scarred for Life»

The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, by the American artist Nan Goldin, is originally a slideshow of hundreds of photographs taken since the late 1970s when she first moved to New York.

Here, we see selected works from that series.

Bathed in reddish light, we see Goldin and her friends at parties, in clubs, in the bathroom or in bedrooms… 

In the photographs, intimate moments of bliss and ecstasy are shared. We also see pain, and various kinds of relational and substance abuse.

Many of the pictures also depict the AIDS epidemic through Goldin's eyes. She says herself that Ballad of Sexual Dependency is the diary she let people read… 

Such intimacy can also be seen in works by the Australian photographer and filmmaker Tracy Moffat, who in 1994, created the photo series called Scarred for Life.

In nine snapshot-like photographs with short texts, she depicts both large and small traumatic and hurtful childhood memories.

Moffatt has also openly talked about her own trauma growing up…

At the age of three, she was taken from her Aboriginal mother and placed in foster care. And then, as the eldest daughter in her new white foster family, much of the housework and babysitting duties fell on her…

Goldin and Moffat both share the will to confess – to make their own experiences, life and marginalization visible – and turn them into art.