This Spring an important selection of contemporary and etablished classics from the collection is on view in the South Wing. Several new Louisiana acquisitions are presented as well, key among them 'Memory Lost', a new magnum opus by photographer and activist Nan Goldin – one of the most revered and significant artists of our time.
Louisiana takes pride in presenting a very important new acquisition in the museum’s collection, ‘Memory Lost’, by American photographer Nan Goldin (b. 1953). Widely regarded as one of the most important and influential artists of her generation, Goldin won international acclaim in the 1980s with her slide show ‘The Ballad of Sexual Dependency’, a deeply personal depiction of bohemian subculture and nightlife in cities such as New York and Berlin in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Intimate and
harrowing
'Memory Lost' is an approx 24 minute long digital slide show, which has already been heralded as a masterpiece in Goldin's career. The work - which is both intimate, poetic, captivating and heartbreaking - revolves around abuse, friendship, love, deprivation and loss. It is jointly owned by the Louisiana and Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
‘Memory Lost’ (2019-21) is composed of images and footage from Goldin’s extensive archive. The artist has battled with addicition and came close to dying a few years ago as a result of her addiction to the painkiller OxyContin. Since then, she has been at the forefront of the fight against the Sackler family, the producers of this drug, which in large part has caused the current, devastating opioid epidemic in the United States. Goldin and her activist group P.A.I.N. have been portrayed in the award-winning documentary ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed’, which recently was nominated to an Oscar.
SCULPTURAL AND MONUMENTAL
Richard Long’s circle of stone, Shilpa Gupta’s cloud of humming microphones, Louise Bourgeois’ iconic spider… The Spring presentation of works from the Louisiana collection takes up the entire South Wing, which provides ample space to showcase some of its most impressive formats and works. On show are therefore large-scale paintings and photos by among others Thomas Demand, Mamma Anderssson, Julie Mehretu, Andreas Gursky and Wolfgang Tillmans. As well as another important, gigantic new acquisition by the late Michel Majerus.
Small gems
on paper
A small room, right at the entrance of the South Wing, hosts a series of small works on paper, donated to Louisiana by Celia Ascher - one of the museum's most faithful supporters through the ages. The works stem from an exquisite collection of drawings and gouaches from early Russian and European constructivism in particular, which she donated in her own name and that of her husband Joseph. In spite of their modest size, these works give an essential insight into one of the most important early 20th century art movements - with works by the pioneers of Constructivism in Russia, Bauhaus in Germany and de Stijl in the Netherlands, as well as Abstraction-Création in Paris.
