Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, “This Will Not End Well”: Nan Goldin’s Slide Shows.. and More
Netherlands_Amsterdam
Stedelijk Museum, “This Will Not End Well”: Nan Goldin’s Slide Shows
The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam presents “This Will Not End Well,” a solo exhibition by photographer Nan Goldin (b. 1953), on view through January 28, 2024.
Nan Goldin is an American photographer who has been active since the 1970s, leaving significant marks on fine art, fashion, and advertising photography. This exhibition focuses on Goldin’s work as a filmmaker. Beginning in the 1980s, Goldin created slide shows of her photographs, which she presented live in clubs and underground movie theaters. The show presents six slideshows of Goldin that combine thousands of photographs with music, voiceovers, and archives.
Goldin’s “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1981-2022)” captures friends in Provincetown, New York, Berlin, and London from the 1970s to the present. “The Other Side (1992-2021)” follows her transgender friends from 1972 to 2010. “Sisters, Saints, Sibyls (2004-2022)” is a testimony to the trauma of family and suicide. “Fire Leap (2010-2022)” attempts to enter the world of children. “Sirens (2019-2020)” visualizes the ecstasy of drugs. “Memory Lost (2019-2021)” deals with drug withdrawal and claustrophobia. Goldin’s themes include the seductive and destructive aspects of sex and drugs, the joys and sorrows of intimate relationships and friendships, drug addiction, sex work, domestic violence, LGBTQ+ rights, and the AIDS epidemic.
Germany_Berlin
daadgalerie’s International Group Show: “If the Berlin Wind Blows My Flag. Art and Internationalism Before the Fall of the Berlin Wall”
Through January 14, 2024, the DAAD gallery (daadgalerie) in Berlin presents “If the Berlin Wind Blows My Flag. Art and Internationalism Before the Fall of the Berlin Wall.”
Since its inception in 1963 with support from the Ford Foundation, the DAAD Artist-in-Residence program has brought outstanding international artists to West Berlin to help overcome the city’s cultural isolation. Thanks to the recent digitization of the archive of artists who have gone through the residency, it is now possible to explore the history of the program.
Through the institution’s archives, the exhibition explores the art scene in West Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall and focuses on the DAAD’s role in the internationalization of the city’s art scene. It also reflects on the invisible exclusions that happened in the DAAD’s selection process and examines the impact of West German politics on the institution.
The exhibition features three venues: the DAAD Gallery, the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), and the Galerie im Körnerpark, as a city-wide collaborative project. The invited artists present new works that draw from the institution’s archives and respond to the historical record of the 1960s and 1970s.
Germany_Aachen
Ludwig Forum Aachen: Katalin Ladik, Balkan Avant-Garde Artist
Ludwig Forum Aachen presents “Ooooooooo-pus,” a solo exhibition by Katalin Ladik (b. 1942), on view through March 10, 2024.
Grown up in Novi Sad in the former Yugoslavia (now Serbia), Ladik was at the center of the avant-garde movement in Central and Eastern Europe since the 1960s. Her works include spoken word poetry, performance, sound, and sculpture, which emphasize the visual and spoken aspects of language in favor of meaning and logic.
Using her body and voice as instruments and mediums, Ladik challenged gender roles and society’s female archetypes and offered sharp irony and critique of folkloric and nationalistic discourses prevalent in the Balkan region. This exhibition is the first comprehensive presentation of Ladik’s work in Germany.
