The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

[1][2] Consisting of over 700 images,[3] it is an autobiographical document of a portion of New York City's No wave music and art scene, the post-Stonewall gay subculture of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the heroin subculture of the Bowery neighborhood, and Goldin's personal family and love life.

[4] Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said it "remains a benchmark for all other work in a similar confessional vein.

"[5] Lucy Davies, writing in The Telegraph in 2014, said it "would come to influence a generation of fledgling photographers, who fell into her truth-telling wake.

[3] It was originally devised as a slideshow set to the music of Velvet Underground, James Brown, Nina Simone, Charles Aznavour, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Petula Clark among others, to entertain Goldin's friends.

[5][2] It "portrayed her friends – many of them part of the hard-drugs subculture on New York's Lower East Side – as they partied, got high, fought and had sex.