Gagosian announced the global representation of Nan Goldin, one of the world’s most prominent photographers and artist-activists. Goldin will be leaving the Marian Goodman Gallery, which has representing her since 2018, confirms a spokesperson for the gallery. “We were proud to support Goldin’s work and activism over the past five years and wish him well,” they said in a statement shared with The arts journal. Goldin will continue to be represented by the San Francisco Fraenkel Gallery.
His departure from Marian Goodman comes after another of the gallery’s star artists, market heavyweight Gerhard Richter, jumped boat after more than 30 years, signing exclusively at the mega gallery David Zwirner last December.
Goldin has been a prolific artist since the late 1970s, when she began photographing the queer subcultures of Boston and later New York, including capturing portraits of her friends and lovers during the 1980s AIDS crisis. and 90. More recently, she rose to prominence as the founder of PAIN, (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), an advocacy organization for victims of the opioid crisis. The group, led by Goldin, focused on the involvement of certain members of the Sackler family in the sponsorship of arts institutions in the UK and Europe. The billionaire family members were responsible for manufacturing and distributing the addictive opioid drug OxyContin through pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma.
Goldin’s life and activism with PAIN is the subject of a recently released documentary by Laura Poitras, who won, among other distinctions, the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 79th Venice International Film Festival.
Neither Gagosian nor Marian Goodman will comment on the details or reasons for Goldin’s move, and it is not yet clear whether financial considerations are a deciding factor in Goldin joining the world’s biggest gallery brand.
Gagosian’s business operation could prove significant. The artist’s art market, like many of her female peers whose work was essential to the development of the photography canon, lags behind that of her male counterparts, while her secondary market has not experienced significant development over the past two decades, with its record auction price of $284,500 for the works Thanksgiving, sold at Christie’s New York in 2002.
Gagosian has yet to announce when Goldin’s first exhibition with the gallery will take place.
