Nan Goldin’s Activism and Art in “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”

In the late nineties, I cherished a copy of renowned photographer Nan Goldin’s monograph, “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” which coincided with her impactful 1996 mid-career survey at the Whitney Museum. Although I no longer possess the book (I parted ways with it along with the old boyfriend to whom it belonged), the vivid imagery from its pages remains etched in my memory. The photographs captured Goldin’s life, her friends, and lovers within various bohemian, gender-bending, hard-partying scenes from the latter decades of the twentieth century. These images were taken in a spontaneous, off-the-cuff style that defied conventional composition and reportorial detachment. Instead, they presented an unvarnished and sensual portrayal of “the random gestures and colors of the universe of sex and dreams, longing and breakups,” as my colleague Hilton Als articulated in a 2016 profile of Goldin for this magazine. As a relatively sheltered twenty-one-year-old residing in Tel Aviv at the time, I perceived these photographs as louche cosmopolitan missives from a world that appeared both terrifying and glamorously beyond belief. The catalogue’s front cover showcased a self-portrait: a profile shot of Goldin gazing out a train window, her expression serious and unwavering. What profound truths was she witnessing?

The depth of Goldin’s vision—and the transformative power it holds—is masterfully explored in “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” a poignant documentary by Laura Poitras, focusing on the now sixty-nine-year-old photographer. Poitras undertakes a dual mission in the film. Firstly, she narrates Goldin’s life story, detailing her oppressive childhood in a loveless Jewish household, marked by the traumatic suicide of her older sister. This narrative unfolds through Goldin’s early photographic endeavors, as she weathered the tumult of both joy and suffering, eventually maturing into one of the most pivotal photographers of her generation. This narrative thread is expertly complemented by Goldin’s own sardonic, gravelly voice-over. Interwoven within this personal history is a second narrative strand, which highlights Goldin’s establishment of the activist group P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) in response to the devastating opioid crisis in 2017.

After undergoing surgery in 2014, Goldin was prescribed the opioid OxyContin as a pain management solution. Despite adhering strictly to her prescription, she recounted in the January 2018 issue of Artforum how she “became addicted overnight,” an experience that served as the foundation for P.A.I.N.’s manifesto. Her life soon revolved entirely around the pursuit and use of Oxy. Upon managing to emerge from the depths of addiction three years later, she confronted a chilling realization: the Sackler family, whose name she recognized from prominent museums and galleries, was a key player in the opioid epidemic. As my colleague Patrick Radden Keefe has reported in this magazine (and is also featured in the documentary), the Sacklers were fully aware of the significant risks associated with OxyContin, a drug they formulated and marketed through their company, Purdue Pharma, while simultaneously enriching themselves and igniting a catastrophic wave of addiction and fatalities. The tragic toll of opioid overdoses in the United States alone amounts to hundreds of thousands of lives lost. For many years, the Sackler name was prominently displayed in various cultural institutions, thanks to the family’s generous donations. However, Goldin, whose work is featured in the permanent collections of numerous major museums, resolved to leverage her status in the art world to confront the Sacklers. She orchestrated demonstrations at prestigious venues such as the Met, the Louvre, and the Guggenheim, shaming both the Sacklers and the institutions willing to accept the family’s tainted funding—funds that, as P.A.I.N. argued, should be utilized to repair the harm caused by the opioid crisis.

“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” commences with footage from P.A.I.N.’s initial direct action in March 2018, staged beside the iconic Temple of Dendur in the Met’s Sackler Wing—arguably the most significant testament to the Sacklers’ philanthropic endeavors. “I’m really nervous,” Goldin admits, dressed in black, her curly ginger hair pulled back, and her lips painted red. She stands with her fellow activists, poised to launch into a powerful microphone check. “A hundred thousand dead!” she proclaims, prompting the group to echo her. “Temple of money, temple of greed!” they chant in unison. “Sacklers lie, people die!” As this passionate call-and-response unfolds, the activists hurl prop pill bottles labeled “OxyContin: prescribed to you by the Sackler family, major donors of the Met” into the temple’s reflecting pool, before staging a die-in on the museum floor.

Goldin’s activism drew inspiration from ACT UP, the group founded in 1987 to challenge the government’s neglectful and bigoted response to the AIDS epidemic through civil disobedience and direct action. As I watched the film, I couldn’t help but recall the famous words emblazoned on the back of a jacket worn by the late artist, writer, and ACT UP member David Wojnarowicz, a friend of Goldin’s: “If I die of AIDS—forget burial—just drop my body on the steps of the F.D.A.” This striking call to unearth the hidden truths and force society to confront uncomfortable realities resonates deeply with Goldin, who is equally passionate about beauty and representational honesty.

There is perhaps no filmmaker more suited to narrate Goldin’s journey than Poitras, an Oscar-winning documentarian known for her works “Citizenfour,” which centers on Edward Snowden, and “My Country, My Country,” which investigates the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Poitras herself has an activist background; after releasing “My Country, My Country,” she found herself listed on a federal watch list. In “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Poitras skillfully intertwines Goldin’s artistic endeavors with her political activism, drawing implicit connections between the two—parallels that Goldin has also recognized. “I decided to make the private public by calling [the Sacklers] to task,” Goldin articulated in Artforum, a decision she implements by pairing her call to action with some of her earlier photographs. These images portray Sackler plaques in esteemed art institutions and capture her harrowing descent into the depths of OxyContin addiction. In “Crushing Oxy on My Bed, Berlin, 2015,” a well-used pill organizer sits atop an unkempt duvet next to a platter bearing traces of drug powder. This moment, far from glamorous, is one Goldin insists must be seen.

Throughout her childhood, Goldin was conditioned to suppress her voice. Growing up in early-nineteen-sixties Maryland, she sensed the constant undercurrent of tension in her home. “Don’t let the neighbors know,” her mother would often caution her. Goldin reflects that these attempts at concealment were futile; the neighbors could hear the family’s arguments. The source of this strife centered around Goldin’s older sister, Barbara, a brilliant and spirited girl prone to anger and rebellious behavior. Barbara, with whom Goldin shared a close bond, resisted the conventional expectations imposed by their parents, leading to her repeated institutionalization, which Goldin describes as an effort to silence her by labeling her mentally ill. Tragically, in 1965, Barbara took her own life by lying on train tracks. “The police came into the house,” Goldin recalls. “My father started wailing on the front lawn. . . . And I heard my mother say, ‘Tell the children it was an accident.’ From that moment, I understood: denial. She didn’t want us to confront the truth. That’s when it clicked for me.”

In the aftermath of her sister’s death, Goldin was shuffled between foster homes until, in her mid-teens, she found herself at a progressive school in Boston, where she was introduced to her first camera. Overcoming her profound shyness, Goldin discovered empowerment and solace through photography. Her once-stifled voice began to emerge, as she channeled her emotions into her art. “Taking pictures gave me a voice,” she states. After completing her education, Goldin relocated to Cambridge, immersing herself in a community of drag queens, who became her initial subjects. “I wanted the queens to grace the cover of Vogue,” she remarks, her words accompanied by intimate visuals of her stunning and expressive friends. However, for this community, mere survival had become an art form in itself. “My roommates were escaping America, and they found unity among each other,” she explains. “It was about living authentically, despite the external judgments.”

Aligning herself with the marginal and oppositional became a defining theme in Goldin’s life and art. She moved to downtown New York in the late seventies, settling into a “shithole loft” on the Bowery, a space devoid of natural light where she and her friends participated in uninhibited acts of love and drug use. This gritty environment helped crystallize her aesthetic as a photographer. Many of her images featured her intimate circle of friends, including photographer David Armstrong, actor and writer Cookie Mueller, and sculptor Greer Lankton. In “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency,” her most celebrated series, which she began presenting live in the early eighties as an evolving slideshow accompanied by a dynamic soundtrack, Goldin took on the role of participant observer. She captured raw, private moments—of sex, violence, elation, addiction, and heartbreak—infusing her work with a sense of urgency and vibrancy, depicting the ephemeral nature of life intertwined with themes of love and loss.

Central to “The Ballad” is Goldin’s tumultuous, years-long relationship with a man named Brian. The series showcases their joyful moments—intimate encounters, cuddling, and shared experiences—alongside the darker aspects of their relationship, which ultimately culminated in Brian’s violent assault on Goldin, leaving her nearly blinded. In the self-portrait “Nan One Month After Being Battered,” created in 1984, Goldin stares directly into the camera, her expression flat and mask-like, with a vivid slash of crimson lipstick mirroring the bruises surrounding her eyes. Both Goldin and Brian struggled with heroin addiction, and her images surrounding drug use range from the casual and carefree (as seen in “Getting high, New York City,” from 1979, featuring a man cooking heroin with a bright-red belt that echoes the color of a rotary phone at his feet) to the stark reality of addiction in “Nan at her bottom…, The Bowery, NYC,” from 1988. In this later image, a different red phone appears, held by a bloated Goldin, sitting on her chaotic bed, clearly trapped in the throes of addiction. The vibrant, party-like energy of the earlier photograph starkly contrasts with the grim reality of a life ensnared by substance abuse.

Goldin sought rehabilitation in 1988. By this time, her status as an art star was firmly established, and the critical and commercial resistance she initially faced had largely dissipated (which she summarizes in the film by mimicking her critics: “This isn’t photography! Nobody photographs their own life!”). Nevertheless, her commitment to authentically presenting her reality endured. Poitras’s film features a chilling snippet of promotional material from Purdue Pharma, which was released to reassure patients that opioids, previously deemed addictive, were safe when used as OxyContin. “Don’t be afraid to take what they give you,” a man implores the camera. In light of the catastrophic fallout from this falsehood, witnessing this scene was profoundly unsettling. Yet, taken symbolically, the message encapsulates Goldin’s lifelong refusal to accept what “they” offer. Instead, she has navigated her life—and created her art—on her own terms. The trauma that has shaped her life, particularly her sister’s silencing and subsequent suicide, represents a struggle against conformity and denial. “My sister was a victim of all that, but she knew how to fight back. Her rebellion became the catalyst for my own. She illuminated the path for me,” Goldin reflects.

In its five years of dedicated activism, P.A.I.N. has achieved significant and unanticipated progress. Thanks to the group’s relentless pressure, prestigious institutions like the Met, the Guggenheim, and the National Gallery in London have severed ties with the Sacklers and removed the family’s name from their venues. (P.A.I.N. has since shifted its focus toward harm-reduction initiatives.) Nevertheless, the repercussions of the Sacklers’ greed and deceit remain pervasive, and Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy has granted the family immunity from civil accountability, allowing them to retain their immense wealth.

As the documentary approaches its conclusion, Goldin and several fellow activists participate in a Zoom call during a legal proceeding, where, as part of Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy requirements, members of the Sackler family, including former president Richard Sackler, are obligated to witness testimonies from OxyContin victims. “I believe Richard said that he is listening. I believe he is also supposed to say that he is watching the video. . . . Can he confirm that?” a lawyer queries during the call. “I can confirm that I saw. . . . I’ve seen everything,” Sackler responds. Watching this Zoom, a burning cigarette in her hand, Goldin’s expression transforms into a bitter smile. For her, unlike Sackler, the act of seeing carries profound significance. ♦