Laura Poitras's Documentary on Nan Goldin Exposes Art World Complicity with Sackler Philanthropy

Laura Poitras's 2022 documentary 'All the beauty and the bloodshed' portrays photographer Nan Goldin's activism against the Sackler family, whose pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma produced OxyContin. The film connects Goldin's personal history, including her sister's suicide, life in New York's queer communities, sex work, and domestic abuse, to her founding of P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) in 2017. Goldin's organization successfully pressured institutions like The Louvre, Tate, The Guggenheim, and The Met to remove the Sackler name. Her artistic protests included pouring replica OxyContin bottles into The Met's Egyptian galleries and staging a 'blizzard of prescriptions' at the Guggenheim. The documentary references a 1989 exhibition at Artist's Space in New York where Goldin included works by David Wojnarowicz, who faced censorship for criticizing Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor. It draws parallels between historical uses of art for reputation laundering and contemporary examples like the Zabludowicz Collection in London. Goldin survived a fentanyl overdose after developing OxyContin dependency. The film features Klaus Nomi's 1983 performance of 'The Cold Song' in Munich before his death from AIDS. Poitras highlights Goldin's integrity and the art world's ongoing complicity in sanitizing dubious wealth through philanthropy.