Nan Goldin, born in Washington in 1953 and raised in Boston, began taking photographs in her early youth. She studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from 1974 to 1977. She now lives and works in New York, Paris and Berlin.

In her photographs, Nan Goldin tackles serious topics such as violence, drugs, sex and death. She portrays and documents - always in a sensitive way - friends, acquaintances and also herself in sometimes very personal and intimate snapshots. Over the decades, a kind of diary was created that, like the work of Ruth Baumgarte, places people at the centre of artistic interest, while at the same time unquestionably revealing the artist's strong empathetic attitude towards the people portrayed. 

In addition to major solo exhibitions in renowned museums and exhibition venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Berlinische Galerie, Nan Goldin’s works are also represented in numerous public collections, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Modern, London, and the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig. Most recently, the artist was awarded the Reminders Day Award (2011) and the Käthe Kollwitz Prize (2022).

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