Installation view of Sirens, 2019-2021, Single-channel video; 16 min. 1 sec., Edition of 5 + 1 AP

Credits: Sirens, music by Mica Levi

One of the most important and influential artists of her generation, Goldin has revolutionized the art of photography through her frank and deeply personal portraiture.

Installation view of Memory Lost, 2019-2021, Digital slideshow; 24 min. 16 sec., Edition of 5 + 1 AP

Credit: Memory Lost, music by Mica Levi, CJ Calderwood and Soundwalk Collective.

Goldin’s significant recent digital slideshow, Memory Lost (2019-2021), recounts a life lived through a lens of drug addiction. This captivating, beautiful and haunting journey unfolds through an assemblage of intimate and personal imagery to offer a poignant reflection on memory and the darkness of addiction. It is one of the most moving, personal and visually arresting narratives of Goldin’s career to date, and is accompanied by an emotionally charged new score commissioned from composer and instrumentalist Mica Levi. Documenting a life at once familiar yet reframed, new archival imagery is cast to portray memory as lived and witnessed experience, yet altered and lost through the effects of drugs.

Nan Goldin and Thora Siemsen in conversation

In her interview with writer Thora Siemsen, Nan Goldin shares the artistic process and the inspirations behind the photographs and films featured in Memory Lost, the first solo presentation by the artist in New York in five years.