After Alleging Censorship, Nan Goldin Adds Message About Gaza and Israel to Work in Berlin

Following a widely discussed interview in which she alleged censorship, Nan Goldin has added a message about the people killed in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank, and during the October 7 Hamas attack, to an artwork on view at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie.

Goldin and Klaus Biesenbach, the museum’s director, had reportedly been engaged in a bitter back-and-forth over her plans to add the statement to The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, her iconic 1985 slideshow of photographs, which appears in her Neue Nationalgalerie survey.

In an interview with journalist Hanno Hauenstein that was published last week by the Frankfurter Rundschau, Goldin alleged that the institution initially refused to allow her to add the statement, a move that she said was censorship.

“The museum obviously didn’t want to allow any reference to my politics—or space for mourning—within the exhibition,” Goldin said.

According to Goldin, the statement initially read, “In solidarity with the people of Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. And with the Israeli civilians who were killed on October 7.”

In a new Frankfurter Runschau report published on Thursday, the museum told Hauenstein that this was not true. Goldin’s initial statement did not mention the October 7 victims, the Neue Nationalgalerie said, and so, the museum could not add that slide.

But now, after internal discussions, that slide has finally been added, with slightly different language. It now reads, “In solidarity with the people of Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and the Israeli victims of October 7.”

Asked by Hauenstein about the new statement, Biesenbach said, “The museum stands by the fact that artists have a right to freedom of expression as long as it complies with our Code of Conduct.”

A Neue Nationalgalerie spokesperson did not respond to ARTnews’s request for comment. ARTnews was unable to reach Goldin through her gallery representative.

Even before it opened, Goldin’s exhibition had been scrutinized because of her support for pro-Palestinian causes. Certain German publications noted her signature of a letter published by Artforum that called for a ceasefire in Gaza and did not initially mention the October 7 attack in Israel.

At the opening for her show in Berlin, Goldin delivered an impassioned speech in which she fiercely denounced Germany’s response to people who voice support for Palestine. She said that the word antisemitism had “lost its meaning” in Germany, that a rise of Islamophobia was being “ignored,” and labeled Israel’s military action in Gaza a “genocide.” But, she said, “we’re not supposed to talk about this as genocide. Are you afraid to hear this, Germany?”

Biesenbach then responded with his own speech in which he said he disagreed with Goldin’s views. “For us, Israel’s right to exist is beyond question,” he said, denouncing the “cruel act of terror” in Israel on October 7. Then he expressed sympathy for the victims in Gaza in Lebanon. During that speech, Biesenbach was briefly shouted down by pro-Palestine demonstrators.