Gagosian will open an exhibition of 126 photographs from Nan Goldin’s “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” at its Davies Street gallery in London on January 13th, 2026. The presentation will mark the first time the complete series has been shown in the United Kingdom. It also aligns with the 40th anniversary of the photobook’s publication.
Now 72, Goldin is an American photographer known for documenting the queer community during the AIDS crisis with raw, diaristic images that capture nightlife and the complexities of relationships. Her work is celebrated for shifting photography toward more personal and candid forms of expression.
Goldin worked on “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” from 1973 to 1986. The photographs examine relationships and gender through images taken of Goldin’s personal life. The work has come to define the downtown New York community in which it was made, as well as evoking the realities of addiction and the challenges of LGBTQ+ life at the time.
“I don’t select people in order to photograph them; I photograph directly from my life,” Goldin said in a press statement. “These pictures come out of relationships, not observation. They are an invitation to my world, but now they have become a record of the generation that was lost.”
Goldin first developed this project as a slideshow of images, playing along with a soundtrack. This artwork was first presented in New York nightclubs before being published as a book by Aperture in 1986. It is currently in its 23rd printing.
The Gagosian exhibition will open during a period of significant international focus on Goldin’s work. A major retrospective devoted to her moving-image work, “This Will Not End Well,” is currently on view at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan through February 15, 2026, before traveling to the Grand Palais in Paris from March 18 to June 21, 2026. Goldin’s Stendhal Syndrome (2024) installation is on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery through April 12, 2026.
