Just below the surface of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is a roiling anger that those suffering from the opioid crisis and the HIV epidemic must battle against the shame and stigma of being an 'addict' in order to get treatment as you might get for anything else, yet the Sacklers are exempt from needing to feel any shame at all.
It could be argued that the stakes of the group's actions, i.e. whether a series of prestigious galleries (which themselves all have a record of unscrupulous behaviour that long predates Perdue) will remove the Sackler name from their buildings is inadequate in comparison to the 500,000+ lives that have been lost in post-1990s opioid crisis. Insufficient that it may be, it is at least something that Goldin can achieve. And that it took her so much to do just that is, if anything, incredibly sobering when we consider what is left to be done.
What Goldin teaches us [is] that, contrary to the new-age myth that claims we must first get ourselves together in order to make a difference in society, people can be excellent artists and impactful citizens while simultaneously grappling with addiction, other health problems, and painful histories. [B]oth Goldin and Poitras have proved that artists with integrity are worth more than the institutions that claim to hold them up. They have meaning on their own. Regardless of how we engage with their work, this is a lesson that we all need to learn.
— Sarah Schulman (Criterion)
The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.