Nan Goldin: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

First published in 1986, Nan Goldin's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.

These photographs described a lifestyle that was visceral, charged and seething with a raw appetite for living, and the book soon became the swan song for an era that reached its peak in the early 1980s. Goldin's lush colour photography and candid style still demand that the viewer encounter their profound intensity head on. As she writes: Real memory, which these pictures trigger, is an invocation of the colour, smell, sound and physical presence, the density and flavour of life.

Through an accurate and detailed record of Goldin's life, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency's influence on photography and other aesthetic realms has continued to grow, making it a classic of contemporary photography.