“These pictures come out of relationships, not observation.” Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin’s photographs are as touching and shocking today as they were thirty years ago. Their fascination does not necessarily stem from their subject matter—oscillating, as it does, between glamour and the gutter, with rare moments of normality and happiness—but from their radical intimacy. Goldin approaches only those who are close to her with her camera, thus sensitively capturing the everyday suffering from sickness, dependence, violence, and excess. She does not just empathize with the hardships of her friends and family, but is herself an essential part of their lives and experiences. Again and again, her photographic interiors and exterior views reveal the extent to which her photographs are interwoven with her own life and fate. In these works, the acute suffering of others simultaneously comes to represent Goldin’s own abject circumstances.

C/O Berlin presents five of Nan Goldin’s slideshows, several of which will be seen in Berlin for the first time: “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” (1981), “All By Myself” (1995/96), “Heartbeat” (2003), “The Other Side” (2008) and “New Kids Show” (2008). These slide series are highly condensed stories and memories set to music compiled by Goldin herself.