The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

Today I found out about Nan Goldin, a photographer who began her documentary photography career in the late 1960's/early 1970's. Her first solo show was in 1973 at twenty years old. It showcased her unique snapshots of the gay and transsexual communities she experienced in boston, her hometown. She moved to New York City after finishing school, and took an interest in being apart of the post-stonewall riots gay subculture, the post-punk new-wave scene, the Bowery's hard-drug subculture. Goldin used these subcultures as the foundation for her collection of photographs taken between 1979-1986 entitled "The Balled of Sexual Dependency", taken from the musical "Threepenny opera". Her unbelievably heavy photographs portray everything from Heroin addiction, drag-queens, dysfunctional lovers, and AIDS victims. I encourage you to really take in her photos seperately, you might be surprised by how profound they truly are.
















"The Cookie Diaries" is a series of photographs that documents Goldin's relationship with friend Cookie Mueller, who died of AIDS in 1989. Goldin describes her first impression of Cookie as a "cross between a Tobacco Road Outlaw and a Hollywood B-Girl, the most famous women I'd ever seen." Besides being an artist, actress, mom, Heroin addict, and wife, Cookie was a friend of Goldin's for over 13 years, over which time Goldin took many pictures of Cookie. Through these photographs, the women became close friends.
Here is an amazing article by Nan Goldin about her connection to Cookie Mueller and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic:
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/11/theory-nan-goldin-on-cookie-mueller.html






Cookie's Husband, David, died seven weeks before her, also of AIDS.





"Fortunately I am not the first person to tell you that you will never die. You simply lose your body. You will be the same except you won't have to worry about rent or mortgages or fashionable clothes. You will be released from sexual obsessions. You will not have drug addictions. You will not need alcohol. You will not have to worry about cellulite or cigarettes or cancer or AIDS or venereal disease. You will be free." -Cookie Muellerar