Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nan Goldin\u2019s unflinching portraits of New York\u2019s 1980s demimonde are some of the most important photographs of our time. But it was film, not photography, that was the artist\u2019s first calling. \u201cI started taking pictures because I wanted to make films,\u201d she said in a recent interview. \u201cI found a way to make films through putting stills together, by making slideshows. Those are my films.\u201dThat early vision takes centre stage in This Will Not End Well, Goldin\u2019s 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\u2019s oeuvre. Tales of love, sex, addiction and loss unfold to poignant soundtracks and voice-overs, tracing the now-familiar epic of the artist\u2019s life; from her childhood in suburban Boston and her decadent years in Manhattan\u2019s 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 Ward\u00e9 designed with Goldin to evoke queer clubs, underground cinemas or hospitals.Anchoring the show is \u201cThe Ballad of Sexual Dependency\u201d (1981-2022), the artist\u2019s montage of almost 700 photographs capturing the pain and ecstasy of desire. Candid shots of couples in bars and bedrooms \u2014 smiling, sharing tender glances, locked in passionate embraces \u2014 play out against an eclectic soundtrack ranging from opera arias to the Velvet Underground and Petula Clark\u2019s \u201cDowntown\u201d.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 \u2014 which typically conjures scenes of friends and family gathering around a Kodak projector to view holiday snaps \u2014 by confronting subjects polite society prefers to ignore.Interweaving themes of death, longing and abandonment, \u201cThe Ballad\u201d 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\u2019 narrative and emotional power. Tracks like Screamin\u2019 Jay Hawkins\u2019s \u201cI Put a Spell on You\u201d, with its possessive lyrics about a man bewitching his lover, amplify the work\u2019s warnings against jealousy and obsession. Similarly in \u201cFire Leap\u201d (2010-2022), a paean to childhood, images of kids donning Halloween costumes are paired with a children\u2019s choir version of David Bowie\u2019s \u201cSpace Oddity\u201d, 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. \u201cSirens\u201d (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 \u201csirens\u201d in transcendent states, their elegant movements set to ghostly whistling and ethereal strings in a score composed by Mica Levi. Who wouldn\u2019t be seduced by the euphoria of getting high, the work seems to ask.But one only has to look at \u201cMemory Lost\u201d (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: \u201cIt\u2019s like being suffocated.\u201dThat Goldin has never been one to shy away from difficult topics was made clear at the exhibition\u2019s opening, where she publicly condemned Israel\u2019s war in Gaza and criticised what she described as Germany\u2019s 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 \u201cMemory Lost\u201d 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. \u201cSisters, Saints and Sibyls\u201d (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 Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re 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 \u2014 Barbara died by suicide at age 18, lying down on train tracks.The experience instilled in Goldin an early mistrust of authority. It\u2019s no wonder the artist gravitated towards free spirits \u2014 trans people, drag queens and outsiders \u2014 whom she captures with warmth and intimacy in \u201cThe Other Side\u201d (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, \u201cI Was There\u201d.The slogan perfectly encapsulates the palpable immediacy of Goldin\u2019s 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.frCorrection: this story has been updated to reflect the fact that \u201cI Put a Spell on You\u201d is by Screamin\u2019 Jay Hawkins<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nan Goldin\u2019s unflinching portraits of New York\u2019s 1980s demimonde are some of the most important photographs of our time. But it was film, not photography, that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":155467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-155466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155468,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155466\/revisions\/155468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}