NAN GOLDIN

“I have always wanted to be a filmmaker. My slideshows are films made up of stills,” says Nan Goldin.

The retrospective is installed in unique buildings designed by Hala Wardé, an architect who frequently works with Goldin. Each building is designed in response to the specific piece. Together they constitute a village. While the title of the exhibition “This Will Not End Well” may seem dark and foreboding, it is also full of ironic humour and warmth. The title is an affirmation of Goldin’s ’characteristically unshakeable joie de vivre.’

The exhibition is comprised of: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency****(1981–2022) her magnum opus; The Other Side****(1992– 2021) a historical portrait produced as an homage to her trans friends whom she photographed from 1972 to 2010; Sisters, Saints, Sibyls****(2004–2022) a testament to the trauma of families and suicide; Fire Leap (2010–2022) a foray into the world of children; Memory Lost****(2019–2021) a claustrophobic journey through drug withdrawal; and Sirens****(2019–2020) a trip into drug ecstasy. In Milan, the installation Sisters, Saints, Sibyls (2004–2022) is presented inside the “Cubo,” a space whose dimensions and ceiling height—rising over 20 meters—closely resemble the architectural nature and verticality of La Chapelle de la Salpêtrière in Paris, where the work was originally commissioned and shown in 2004. The installation at Pirelli HangarBicocca is restaged in a form faithful to the original, including two wax sculptural elements: a girl in a bed and a man elevated on a stand, both visible from an overhead viewing platform.

For the exhibition in Pirelli HangarBicocca, curated by Roberta Tenconi with Lucia Aspesi, two additional slideshows are included:You Never Did Anything Wrong (2024), Goldin’s first abstract work, born from an ancient myth that an eclipse is caused by animals stealing the sun, is a poetic meditation on life, death and the natural cycles that connect all beings. And Stendhal Syndrome (2024), based on six different myths from Ovid’s Metamorphosis that are brought to life by Goldin’s portraits of her friends, in a visual dialogue across time between the artist’s personal experience and her photographs of paintings and sculptures from museums around the world.

Furthermore, the retrospective in the Navate opens with a new sound installation Bleeding (2025) by Soundwalk Collective, conceived****in close collaboration with the artist as a prelude that guides visitors into Goldin’s symbolic village of slideshows. The duo—composed of contemporary artist Stephan Crasneanscki and producer Simone Merli—has been collaborating with Nan Goldin since 2015 on various projects including the soundtrack for the documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” (2022) which won the Golden Lion at the 79th Venice International Film Festival. Their new commissioned composition Bleeding draws on ambient recordings captured on-site during previous iterations of Goldin’s show in Stockholm, Amsterdam, and Berlin, generating a poetic tread of spectral residues.