The ballad of sexual dependency

Goldin charts the loss of innocence through barrooms and parties on the social periphery of New York´s East Village and through the harrowing worlds of drugs and prostitution. "The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" is a visual diary chronicling the struggle for intimacy and understanding between friends, and lovers--collectively described by Nan Goldin as her "tribe." Her work describes a world that is visceral, charged, and seething with life . . . . As Goldin writes: "Real memory, which these pictures trigger, is an invocation of the color, smell, sound, and physical presence, the density and flavor of life."