The AGO didn’t just embroil itself in controversy over Nan Goldin’s work – it missed out on a magnificent piece of art

Open this photo in gallery:

The novelist Henri Beyle, born in 1783 in Grenoble, France, is also known as Marie-Henri Beyle, but much better known for his pen name, Stendhal.

Stendhal Syndrome, a condition named for him, is a psychosomatic physical reaction – dizziness, confusion, heart palpitations, even hallucinations or fainting – triggered by exposure to intense beauty. Stendhal is said to have experienced this sort of overwhelming response after visiting the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.

He also famously proclaimed that the presence of politics in the oeuvre of literature “is like a pistol shot at a concert.” Disruptive, dangerous, undesirable.

In the United States, 200 years after Stendhal’s birth, artist Nan Goldin was making slide shows with her wild and intimate photographs, often featuring her friends and lovers. She went from stalwart of the underground New York scene to worldwide fame, making headlines for her activism as well as her art, especially her advocacy around AIDS and the opioids crisis.

The first time Ms. Goldin was alone in the Louvre, with the museum closed to the public, she had an intense reaction that ultimately led to her 2024 work, Stendhal Syndrome – a 26-minute slide show on video that intercuts photographs she has taken of artworks in museums – largely Classical, Renaissance and Baroque – with the intimate photos of her friends. The script comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the myths of Cupid, Diana, Narcissus and others, read by Ms. Goldin in her deadpan, gravelly voice, set to a moving soundtrack.

Open this photo in gallery:

The work is transcendent, not just in its quality, but in its effect. It transports you to a different plane of existence. Where you can leave the real, ugly world behind, enchanted by the beauty and cleverness of the work. (When I first wrote “enchanted,” I typed it as “enchanged.” It’s not a real word, but I love that typo.)

Stendhal Syndrome can serve as an escape hatch from the world, an immersion into art.

And yet.

As my colleague Josh O’Kane has reported, a senior curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario proposed acquiring the work in partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The AGO did not proceed with the acquisition.

Failed Nan Goldin acquisition raises questions about art gallery volunteer committees: What kind of power are they supposed to have?

As Mr. O’Kane wrote, the decision was based less on artistic merit than the politics of the artist. The objections around the work in collections committee discussions came to centre on Ms. Goldin’s views on Israel that were described as “offensive” and “antisemitic.” The charge against the work, The Globe and Mail reported, was led by committee member and board trustee Judy Schulich, a significant donor to the AGO.

In a speech in Germany in 2024, Ms. Goldin, who is Jewish, spoke critically about Israel, decrying the deaths in Gaza – and the silencing of artists who have spoken out about the war. “I saw my show as a test case. If an artist in my position is allowed to express their political stance without being cancelled, I hope I can pave a path for other artists to speak out without being censored,” she said at the Berlin opening of her retrospective, This Will Not End Well.

At the provincial gallery of Ontario, it did not. The no’s prevailed. In the aftermath, the curator who had recommended the acquisition resigned from his full-time position and three members of the committee stepped down.

The fallout from The Globe’s reporting led to the dissolution of the committee, and an open letter calling for Ms. Schulich’s resignation. Among the signatories: Ms. Goldin.

The other two institutions went ahead with the co-acquisition, without the AGO. This is how, on several afternoons, I have been able to spend time with it in a dark gallery at the VAG.

It’s a hide-under-the-covers moment in the world and I have found sitting with Stendhal Syndrome to be a productive and inspiring substitute for disappearing under cozy blankets. The first time I visited, I watched it three times. I would have stayed for a fourth, but my parking was expiring. This week, I again watched it on repeat, leaving only as the gallery was closing for the day.

Free to a good home: Toronto gallery gives away Sybil Goldstein’s art

I went in at first because I was interested in writing about the controversy. But each time I watched, I was drawn into the artwork’s magnificence. I had expected the experience might be overshadowed by something more crude: the politics around art, and art acquisition. War, and death.

But just as Eurydice and Orpheus fall under the spell of one another, the viewer falls under the spell of this work. The controversy – for me, anyway – drops away. It is a stunning work, unforgettable.

You can see it at the Vancouver Art Gallery until April 6. You cannot see it at the AGO.