Nan Goldin prints don’t come cheap. The photographer, who rose to prominence in the 1980s casting a sensitive light on New York’s fractured underground scene — wounded by drug abuse and HIV/AIDS — now devotes herself fully to pharmaceutical reform activism. The mystique around her work has only grown, and a quick search on eBay will show you many of her prints and books (and Supreme collab T-shirts and boards) sell for three or four-figure sums. Which is why, despite our bedrooms beginning to resemble a small independent photography gallery, this charity sale is another one to be tempted by.
Aperture, the publisher behind her breakout book The Ballad of Sexual Dependency in 1986, devoted their most recent print magazine to Nan and this seminal work. The issue includes an extremely rare interview with Nan, as well as a curated selection of her biggest influences in photography, film and literature. Purchase it before 25 June, for £160 (N.B. shipping outside the US is, unfortunately, £60) and you’ll receive a special limited-edition signed print: Self-portrait in blue dress, New York City, 1985.
“This is a picture of me in the ’80s at a friend’s after a small house party,” Nan writes of the chosen image. “The dress was designed for me by my roommate. These were the days of the night life.” Proceeds raised from the sale of this print will go to P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), VOCAL-NY (Voices Of Community Activists & Leaders) and Aperture. “P.A.I.N is my activist group fighting the Sackler family, whose pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma, developed and pushed OxyContin, igniting the Opioid Epidemic. We’re proud to collaborate with VOCAL-NY, a Black-led membership organisation and one of the most influential activist groups on the ground. They organise low-income New Yorkers across the state to end the drug war, homelessness, mass incarceration, and HIV/AIDS, while also providing direct services to people who use drugs.”
“Together,” Nan adds, “we fight to end the drug war and uplift the movement for Black lives. #AllBlackLivesMatter.”
Purchase ‘Self-portrait in blue dress, New York City’, 1985 here. Signed archival pigment print, 5 x 7 inches. Open edition, available for 9 days only.