Nan Goldin | Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2025)

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Nan Goldin | Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1)

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Nan Goldin American

Not on view

Like her subjects, Goldin operates in the gap between art and life that is the special province of the bohemian-where one's attitude and attire, relationships and lifestyle are as carefully constructed and dramatically expressed as any work of art. During her first decade of work, from the mid-1970s to the '80s, the artist literally lived with her camera, producing more than 800 images that were originally presented as a slide show with music entitled The Ballad of Sexual Dependency-a cumulative work in the shape of a life. Nan and Brian in Bed is Goldin's signature image and served as the cover image for the book version of The Ballad, a contemporary vision of alienation and romantic discord set in the photogenic squalor of New York's Lower East Side.

Nan Goldin | Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (3)

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Nan Goldin | Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (4)

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Artwork Details

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Title: Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC

Artist: Nan Goldin (American, born Washington, D.C., 1953)

Date: 1983

Medium: Silver dye bleach print

Dimensions: Image: 20 × 24 in. (50.8 × 61 cm)
Sheet: 20 × 24 in. (50.8 × 61 cm)

Classification: Photographs

Credit Line: Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2001

Accession Number: 2001.627

Rights and Reproduction: © 1983 Nan Goldin

Learn more about this artwork

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Chronology

The United States and Canada, 1900 A.D.-present

Museum Publications

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Nan Goldin | Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC | The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2025)
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