Nan Goldin. This Will Not End Well
The first exhibition dedicated to the work of Nan Goldin as a filmmaker.
ReadNan Goldin (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
Nan Goldin (Washington D.C., USA, 1953; lives and works in New York City) is one of the most high-profile artists of our time.
"The Other Side" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
From 1979 to the present, Goldin has produced numerous slideshows composed of thousands of still images—capturing intimate snapshots of everyday life, her close circle of friends, accounts of family events, while exploring themes ranging from childhood to identity, violence, and addiction.
“This Will Not End Well” (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
“This Will Not End Well” is the first major exhibition showcasing Nan Goldin’s work as a filmmaker and multimedia artist.
“This Will Not End Well” (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
The slideshows are displayed in dedicated pavilions, created through close collaboration between Goldin and architect Hala Wardé.
"Bleeding" (2025) by Soundwalk CollectivePirelli HangarBicocca
In the Navate space the audio piece Bleeding (2025), a prelude to the slideshows commissioned for the exhibition, has been realized by Soundwalk Collective in close collaboration with the artist.
The site-specific installation adds a further sensorial dimension to the exhibitions and incorporates ambient recordings captured on-site during the previous iterations of Goldin’s retrospective.
"The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency captures life in New York, Provincetown, Berlin, and London from the 1970s through the 1990s. Accompanied by an eclectic soundtrack, the slideshow comprises nearly 700 portraits of Goldin’s inner circle
of friends and lovers with raw tenderness, unveiling intimacy and coupling, the quotidian and wild parties, the bedrooms and the bars.
"Memory Lost" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
Memory Lost traces a deeply moving and emotional narrative about the dark side of drug addiction, withdrawal, and the veil of the world.
The images are characterized by the blurred nature of their subjects, including expansive landscapes or the infinite sky on the one hand, and claustrophobic rooms that, in contrast, evoke a strong sense of anxiety and confinement.
"Sirens" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
Sirens shows the pleasure and sensuality drugs can induce with appropriated images and a series of short clips from thirty films. The image of the siren, an analogy for the quicksand of addiction, is combined with hypnotic soundtracks, evoking a euphoric high.
"Fire Leap" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
In Fire Leap music and imagery create a complex interplay in which the artist delves into the world of children’s fears and joy, evoking themes of ritual, transformation, and the liminal space between innocence and experience.
"The Other Side" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
The Other Side pays homage to Goldin’s transgender friends whom she lived with and started photographing in the early 1970s, times of widespread stigma. The work expands to include chapters of trans friends and communities from 1992 to 2010 in New York, Bangkok, Paris, and Berlin.
"Stendhal Syndrome" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
The photographs in Stendhal Syndrome contrast images from Renaissance masterpieces in major collections and museums with Goldin’s intimate portraits of friends, family, and lovers. Spanning across centuries, these photographs engage in a dialogue, revealing striking parallels in composition, color, form, and emotional resonance.
"You Never Did Anything Wrong" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
You Never Did Anything Wrong is a poetic montage of scenes centered around the totality of the solar eclipse, a symbol of transformation based on myths in which animals steal the Sun resulting in an eclipse. It weaves an abstract and spiritual story about the consciousness of all species and the condition of inhabiting this planet together.
"Sisters, Saints, Sibyls" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
Sisters, Saints, Sibyls is an ode to the life of Goldin’s older sister, Barbara Holly Goldin, died by suicide at the age of eighteen. Barbara’s refusal to conform to the expectations of suburban American life, her search for identity and sexuality, and her defiant spirit served as an early source of inspiration for the artist.
In analogy to a classical triptych, Goldin reflects on the universal aspect of mental illness and addiction, female suffering, and the enduring scars of trauma with a three-channel video installation.
“This Will Not End Well” (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
Many international institutions have hosted Nan Goldin’s solo exhibitions, including the National Gallery of Austra - lia (2023); Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2022); Art Institute of Chicago (2020); Tate Modern, London (2019); Triennale di Milano, Milan (2017);
"Stendhal Syndrome" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
MoMA Muse - um of Modern Art, New York (2016); Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro (2012); Louvre Museum, Par - is (2010); Kiasma, Helsinki (2008); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2007, 2001); La Chapelle de la Salpêtrière, Par - is (2004); Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Quebec (2003);
“This Will Not End Well” (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Con temporanea, Rivoli-Turin, Museu Serralves, Porto, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2002); Museo Na - cional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2001); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (1998); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Fotomuseum Winterthur (1997); Whit ney Museum of American Art, New York,
"You Never Did Anything Wrong" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (1996); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1994); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1993); and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1985). Her work has been featured in multiple editions of the Whitney Biennial in New York (1985, 1993, 1995) and in the Biennale of Sydney (1996).
“This Will Not End Well” (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
After four decades of artistic practice, she was honored with a prestigious invitation to exhibit at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2022 with her video Sirens (2019–20). Goldin was appointed Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture in 2006
"The Ballad of Sexual Dependency" (2025) by Nan GoldinPirelli HangarBicocca
and has received several prestigious awards, including the Käthe Kollwitz Prize, Berlin (2022), the Centenary Medal from London’s Royal Photographic Society (2018), the Edward MacDowell Medal, New Hampshire (2012), and the Hasselblad Award, Go - thenburg, Sweden (2007).
