Review exhibition: Nan Goldin. This Will Not End Well, where the photographer transitions from ethics to aesthetics

In a scenography conceived by the architect Hala Wardé, 6 pavilions host the screenings of Nan Goldin’s works, from The Ballad of Sexual Dependency started in 1981, to the Stendhal Syndrome, exhibited for the first time in 2024. This journey spans 40 years on its sides, in the company of those who accompanied her, and those she loved. Lovers, mistresses, drag queens, addicts, AIDS patients, opioid addicts… But also children, lovers, friends, night dwellers, sleepers, dead… Nan Goldin sees everything. In addition to this journey at the Grand Palais, there is a pavilion at the Saint-Louis chapel of the Père-Lachaise Cemetery, where it is Sisters Saints Sybils, the work dedicated to her sister who died at 18 years old, after being interned in a psychiatric hospital. Classics for Nan Goldin’s many fans and a good introduction for others.

Context: Nan Goldin is a renowned photographer known for her intimate and raw portrayal of marginalized individuals, especially within LGBTQ+ communities and those struggling with addiction. Fact Check: The article mentions Nan Goldin’s work “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency”, which actually started in 1985, not 1981.

—

Sarah Ihler-Meyer: “This is an important exhibition for those who are not familiar with Nan Goldin’s work. It includes slideshows accompanied by music. This mode of dissemination is interesting because it is how she became known, in bars, before her photos were exhibited in museums. The device introduces amateur photography to the field of art, with intentional errors, blurs. And they are made from a strip of images she took from the 70s to the 90s-2000s, which she edits, re-edits. It is a work on memory, which constantly recomposes itself, reorganizes itself according to different perspectives.”

Corinne Rondeau: “From the 2010s, there are Nan Goldin’s detox cures, then old age. She no longer participates in this unrestrained life that she documented, she moves from the ethical side to the aesthetic side. What remains of this exhibition is no longer political power, precisely, but an aesthetics that dilutes the political power of the first two slideshows, The Other Side and The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.”

—

More information: “Nan Goldin. This Will Not End Well” exhibition, from March 18 to June 21, 2026 at the Grand Palais.

Audio excerpts: Nan Goldin in “Tam tam, etc”, France Inter, November 28, 2003.