After great success in Stockholm and Amsterdam, Nan Goldin's lifetime retrospective, Nan Goldin. This Will Not End Well, arrived at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin this November. The blockbuster exhibition represents a highly anticipated extensive survey of the celebrated artist’s oeuvre, presented on such a scale for the first time in Germany.
Disrupting the paradigm of the usually formal and uneventful opening ceremony, Nan Goldin made waves with a compelling speech condemning the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. Before addressing the public in Berlin, Goldin asked the audience to join her in four minutes of silence to commemorate the victims with "one one-hundredth of a second for each of the 44,757 people killed in Palestine by Israeli forces, 10,000 buried under the rubble, half of them children, and the 3,516 people killed in Lebanon, and the 815 Israeli civilians killed on October 7th."
Were you uncomfortable? I hope so. We need to feel uncomfortable, to feel our bodies under siege even for a minute.
Thanking the museum for allowing her to speak openly and express her political stance, Goldin underlined that her art and activism are inseparable, contrary to the institution's interpretations of her practice. Tellingly, the exhibition contains no works from the past year, during which Goldin became a vocal advocate of the pro-Palestinian cause. She was one of the signatories of the open letter published in Artforum demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, a letter which led to the dismissal of former editor David Velasco. More recently, she was arrested alongside Molly Crabapple at a Wall Street protest against Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
Throughout her life and career, the highly acclaimed photographer and filmmaker traversed the confines of art as an autonomous phenomenon and a notion entirely separate from life. She actively shaped a better society, including being among the most vocal artists who condemned censorship within the art world. This has reached intolerable measures in the past year – "over 180 artists, writers, and teachers have been canceled since October 7th, some for something as banal as a like on Instagram," Goldin remarked. "Why am I talking to you, Germany? Because tounges have been tied, gagged by the government, the police, and the cultural crackdown."
Why am I talking? Because advocating for human rights cannot be anti-semitic. Because I use words people here feel in danger to say. Because Israel and Germany used the Holocaust and memory culture to manufacture innocence. Because social media is shutting down pro-Palestinian voices. Because of the intentional starvation of an entire population. Because of the occupation of 75 years, that has to be ended. Because Lebanon is beginning to look like Gaza.
For Goldin, the Berlin exhibition is a litmus test, a way to reroute the strong currents of censorship. "If an artist in my position is allowed to express their political stance without being canceled, I hope I am paving a path for other artists to speak out without being censored," she stated. "Criticism of Israel has been conflated with antisemitism," Goldin continued, adding that "Anti-Zionism has nothing to do with antisemitism." She argued that this conflation, employed to "maintain the occupation of Palestine and suppress those who speak out," makes it "harder to define and combat violent hate against Jews." Goldin also highlighted the neglect of Islamophobia, emphasizing how antisemitism has been weaponized as a political tool against Germany’s Palestinian community and their supporters. "What have you learned, Germany?" asked Goldin. "My grandparents escaped pogroms in Russia. I was brought up knowing about the Nazi Holocaust. What I see in Gaza reminds me of the pogroms that my grandparents escaped."
Never again means never again for everyone.
She concluded with a call for an arms embargo, leaving the stage as the crowd erupted into loud chants of "Free, free Palestine." Goldin's powerful address came just hours after the International Criminal Court in The Hague officially issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, many were quick to distance themselves from the stances expressed in her speech. Museum director Klaus Biesenbach struggled to be heard through the roaring crowd, stating that he disagreed with Goldin’s opinion and stood for her right to express herself. He defended Israel's right to exist, asserting that the conflict began with Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, but also emphasized the need for compassion toward the suffering of Gaza's civilian population.
On the other hand, Goldin was more openly denounced by German cultural officials. For instance, German Culture Minister Claudia Roth accused her of "unbearably one-sided political views." She also expressed opposition to the crowd's reaction to Biesenbach’s speech. “I am appalled at the way the director of the New National Gallery was shouted down,” said the Green politician. “Such behavior is absolutely unacceptable and it is an attack on the museum and cultural work, which I condemn in the strongest possible terms.”
The culture minister of Berlin state, Joe Chialo, joined the accusations of "one-sidedness," remarking about Goldin's "obliviousness to history" to deliver such a speech in Berlin, "the city in which the Holocaust was planned." Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, strongly criticized Goldin's speech, stating, "This does not align with our understanding of freedom of expression." The Neue Nationalgalerie and Biesenbach issued a joint statement distancing themselves from the claims made by the protesters, emphasizing their commitment to "freedom of expression, respectful dialogue, and mutual respect."
Capturing attention with a groundbreaking speech, the exhibition Nan Goldin. This Will Not End Well also stands out for its own merits. Developed by architect Hala Wardé, the extraordinary installation encompasses six unique buildings, each materialized as a response to a particular piece. The six selected pieces span five decades of the multimedia artist's practice, including The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, The Other Side, Sisters, Saints and Sibyls, Fire Leap, Memory Lost, and Sirens. Together, they present international audiences with a carefully curated selection through Goldin's artistic journey, which has since the 1980s been deeply embedded in social issues.
Nan Goldin. This Will Not End Well will be on view at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin until April 6th, 2025. Then, the exhibition is set to travel to the Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan and Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais, Paris.