At age 12, Barbara, the elder sister of pioneering photographer Nan Goldin, was admitted to a psychiatric centre. The given reasons for her institutionalisation were her sexually provocative behaviour and refusal to shave her legs, amongst many others. As a witness to Barbara’s physical and psychological abuse and her eventual suicide, Goldin ran away from home and found solace amongst a group of fellow rebels before succumbing to an opioid addiction. Now consecrating all this to film, her latest presentation with Gagosian, ‘Sisters, Saints, Sibyls’, opens in London’s former Welsh Chapel, in Soho, until 23 June 2024.
Goldin is a meticulous archivist, and ‘Sisters, Saints, Sibyls’ features a slideshow of photos from her life overlaid by stoic narration. Taking form through a three-channel projection redolent of Byzantine and Christian triptychs, the film opens with the story of early Christian martyr Saint Barbara, beheaded by her father for finding liberation through spirituality. The saint's story offers a useful rubric for interpreting the rest of the piece, particularly where Barbara Goldin’s story is concerned.
Nan Goldin’s ‘Sisters, Saints, Sibyls’ evinces a link between spiritual and psychiatric abuse
Originally conceived in 2004 for the chapel of the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière in Paris – a former asylum where Jean-Martin Charcot conducted experiments on ‘hysteric women’ – the film implicitly lays bare the tensions of religious idealism and the Church’s difficult past. Even Goldin’s rehab centre, the focus of the film’s final section, eerily resembles a church. Her deadening descent into addiction and self-harm don’t make for an easy watch, but not much of the film does.
Alongside her totemic art career, Goldin’s intransigent campaign against the billionaires fuelling the US opioid epidemic has positioned her as one of the art world’s most powerful figures. Her dedication extends to addressing social injustice through the AIDS crisis and reproductive rights, earning her the title 'portraitist of souls'. Here, ‘Sisters, Saints, Sibyls’ accords femininity a sanctified vindication.
As the film evinces a link between spiritual and psychiatric abuse, the Welsh Chapel offers up an opulent setting for meaningful dialogue about religion’s historically oppressive treatment of women and their sexuality. It’s wise, then, to remember that Magdalene laundries, exorcisms, and conversion therapy are some of the other ways that the Church has inflicted profound psychological harm under the guise of moral and spiritual guidance. Can true faith ever be divorced from this legacy, Goldin, the child of middle-class Jewish parents, seems to ask. While there's no easy answer to this, ‘Sisters, Saints, Sibyls’ certainly makes the case for searching for one.
Nan Goldin, 'Sisters, Saints, Sibyls’, is at The Welsh Chapel until 23 June 2024
