David Wojnarowicz | |
|---|---|
 David Wojnarowicz, from the bookFire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz | |
| Born | (1954-09-14)September 14, 1954 Red Bank,New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | July 22, 1992(1992-07-22) (aged 37) New York City, U.S. |
| Cause of death | AIDS |
David Michael Wojnarowicz (/ˌvɔɪnəˈroʊvɪtʃ/VOY-nə-ROH-vitch;[1] September 14, 1954 – July 22, 1992) was an American painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, songwriter/recording artist, andAIDS activist prominent in theEast Village art scene.[2] He incorporated personal narratives influenced by his struggle with AIDS as well as his political activism in his art until his death from the disease in 1992.[3]
Wojnarowicz was born inRed Bank, New Jersey, where he and his two siblings and sometimes their mother were physically abused by their father, Ed Wojnarowicz. Ed, a Polish-American merchant marine from Detroit, had met and married Dolores McGuinness in Sydney, Australia, in 1948 when he was 26 and she was 16.[4] After his parents' bitter divorce, Wojnarowicz and his siblings were kidnapped by their father and raised in Michigan and Long Island. After finding their young, Australian-born mother in a New York City phone book, they moved in with her.[5] During his teenage years in Manhattan, Wojnarowicz worked as astreet hustler around Times Square. He graduated from theHigh School of Music & Art in Manhattan.[1] By 1971, at age 17, Wojnarowicz was living on the streets full time, sleeping inhalfway houses and squats.[6]
After a period outside New York, Wojnarowicz returned in the late 1970s and emerged as one of the most prominent and prolific members of anavant-garde wing that used mixed media as well as graffiti and street art. His first recognition came from stencils of houses afire that appeared on the exposed sides of East Village buildings.
Wojnarowicz completed a 1977–1979 photographic series onArthur Rimbaud, did stencil work and collaborated with the band3 Teens Kill 4, which released the independentEPNo Motive in 1982. He made autonomoussuper-8 films such asHeroin andBeautiful People with bandmate Jesse Hultberg, and collaborated with filmmakersRichard Kern and Tommy Turner of theCinema of Transgression. He exhibited his work in well-known East Village galleries and New York City landmarks, notablyCivilian Warfare Gallery,Ground Zero Gallery NY, Public Illumination Picture Gallery,Gracie Mansion Gallery, andHal Bromm Gallery.
Wojnarowicz was also connected to other prolific artists of the time, appearing in or collaborating on works withNan Goldin,Peter Hujar,Luis Frangella,Karen Finley,Kiki Smith,James Romberger,Marguerite Van Cook,Ben Neill, Marion Scemama,[7] and Phil Zwickler.
In early 1981, Wojnarowicz met the photographerPeter Hujar, and after a brief period as lovers, came to see Hujar as his great friend and mentor. Weeks after Hujar died of AIDS on November 26, 1987, Wojnarowicz moved into his loft at 189 2nd Avenue. He was soon diagnosed with AIDS himself[5] and, after successfully fighting the landlord to keep the lease, lived the last five years of his life in Hujar's loft. Inheriting Hujar’s dark room—and supplies like rarePortriga Rapid paper—was a boon to Wojnarowicz's artistic process. It was in this loft that he printed elements of his ‘Sex Series’ and an edition of “Untitled (Buffalos)”.
Hujar's death moved Wojnarowicz to create much more explicit activism and political content, notably about the social and legal injustices related to the government response to the AIDS epidemic.[1] He collaborated with video artistTom Rubnitz on the short filmListen to This (1992), a critique of the Reagan and Bush administrations' homophobic responses and failure to address the crisis. The film was shown atMoMA's 2017-18 exhibitClub 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983.[8][9]
In 1985, Wojnarowicz was included in theWhitney Biennial's so-calledGraffiti Show. In the 1990s, he sued and obtained an injunction againstDonald Wildmon and theAmerican Family Association on the grounds that Wojnarowicz's work had been copied and distorted in violation of the New YorkArtists' Authorship Rights Act.[10]
Wojnarowicz's works includeUntitled (One Day This Kid...),Untitled (Buffalo),Water,Birth of Language II,Untitled (Shark),Untitled (Peter Hujar),Tuna,Peter Hujar Dreaming/Yukio Mishima: St. Sebastian,Delta Towels,True Myth (Domino Sugar),Something From Sleep II,Untitled (Face in Dirt), andI Feel a Vague Nausea.
Wojnarowicz also wrote two memoirs in his lifetime includingClose to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration, discussing topics such as his troubled childhood, becoming a renowned artist in New York City, and his AIDS diagnosis[11] andMemories that Smell like Gasoline.Knives opens with an essay about his homeless years: a boy in glasses selling his skinny body to the pedophiles and creeps who hung around Times Square. The heart ofKnives is the title essay, which deals with the sickness and death of Hujar, Wojnarowicz's lover, best friend and mentor, "my brother, my father, my emotional link to the world". In the final essay, "The Suicide of a Guy Who Once Built an Elaborate Shrine Over a Mouse Hole", Wojnarowicz investigates the suicide of a friend, mixing his own reflections with interviews with members of their shared circle.[12] In 1989, Wojnarowicz appeared inRosa von Praunheim's widely acclaimed filmSilence = Death about gay artists in New York City fighting for the rights of AIDS sufferers.
Wojnarowicz died at home in Manhattan on July 22, 1992, at the age of 37, from what his boyfriend Tom Rauffenbart confirmed was AIDS.[1]
After his death, photographer and artistZoe Leonard, a friend of Wojnarowicz, exhibited a work inspired by him,Strange Fruit (for David).[13]
In November 2010, after consultation withNational Portrait Gallery director Martin Sullivan and co-curatorDavid C. Ward but not co-curatorJonathan David Katz,[14]Smithsonian Institution SecretaryG. Wayne Clough removed an edited version of footage used in Wojnarowicz's short silent filmA Fire in My Belly from the exhibit "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" at the National Portrait Gallery in response to complaints from theCatholic League, U.S. House Minority LeaderJohn Boehner, RepresentativeEric Cantor and the possibility of reduced federal funding for the Smithsonian.[15] The video contains a scene with a crucifix covered in ants.[14][16][17][18]William Donohue of the Catholic League claimed the work was "hate speech" against Catholics.[19][20][21] Gay historianJonathan Ned Katz wrote:
In 1989 SenatorJesse Helms demonizedRobert Mapplethorpe's sexuality, and by extension, his art, and with little effort pulled a cowering art world to its knees. His weapon was threatening to disrupt the already pitiful federal support for the arts, and once again, that same weapon is being brandished, and once again we cower.[14]
Clough later said that although he stood by his decision, it "might have been made too quickly",[15] and called the decision "painful."[22] He said that because of the controversy surrounding the footage and the possibility that it might "spiral out of control", the Smithsonian might have been forced to shut down the entire "Hide/Seek" exhibition, and that was "something he didn't want to happen."[22]
The video work was shown intact when Hide/Seek moved to theTacoma Art Museum.[23]
In response, the curator David C. Ward defended the artwork, saying, "It is not anti-religion or sacrilegious. It is a powerful use of imagery".[14] TheAndy Warhol Foundation announced that it would not fund future Smithsonian projects, while several institutions, including theSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art and theTate Modern, scheduled showings of the removed work.[24]
The decision led to multiple protests.[25][26][27][28][29][30]
On December 9, National Portrait Gallery Commissioner James T. Bartlett resigned in protest.[31] Clough issued a statement standing by the decision.[32] Several Smithsonian curators criticized the decision, as did critics, withNewsweek arts criticBlake Gopnik diagnosing the complaints as "gay bashing" and not a legitimate public controversy.[33]
In 2011, P.P.O.W. Gallery showedSpirituality, an exhibition of Wojnarowicz's drawings, photographs, videos, collages, and personal notebooks; in a review inThe Brooklyn Rail, Kara L. Rooney called the show "meticulously researched and commendably curated from a wide array of sources, ... a mini-retrospective, providing context and clues for Wojnarowicz's often elusive, sometimes dangerous, and always brutally honest work."[34]
In 2018, theWhitney Museum of American Art hosted a major retrospective,David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night, which was co-curated by the Whitney's David Kiehl and art historian David Breslin.[35] It received international praise.[36]
In 1992, the bandU2 used Wojnarowicz's tumbling buffalo photograph "Untitled (Buffaloes)" for the cover art of its single "One". The band further adapted this imagery during itsZoo TV Tour. The single and subsequent album became multi-platinum over the next few years, and the band donated a large portion of its earnings to AIDS charities.[37] An oversized gelatin print of "Untitled (Buffaloes)" sold at auction in October 2014 for $125,000, more than four times the estimated price.[38]
In 1988, Wojnarowicz wore a leather jacket with thepink triangle and the text: "If I die of aids - forget burial - just drop my body on the steps of theF.D.A.".[12] In his 1991 memoirClose to the Knives, Wojnarowicz imagined "what it would be like if, each time a lover, friend or stranger died of this disease, their friends, lovers or neighbors would take the dead body and drive with it in a car a hundred miles an hour to Washington, D.C., and blast through the gates of the White House and come to a screeching halt before the entrance and dump their lifeless form on the front steps." On October 11, 1992, activist David Robinson received wide media attention when he dumped the ashes of his partner, Warren Krause, on the grounds of the White House as a protest againstPresident George H. W. Bush's inaction in fighting AIDS. Robinson reported that his action was inspired by this text inClose to the Knives. In 1996, Wojnarowicz's own ashes were scattered on the White House lawn.[39][40]
His name appears in the lyrics of theLe Tigre song "Hot Topic."[41][42]Weight of the Earth, the transcription of Wojnarowicz's audio journals, inspiredMega Bog's albumLife, and Another, and gives its name to the song "Weight of the Earth, on Paper".[43]
On September 13, 2021, at theMet Gala in New York City the Canadian actorDan Levy wore an outfit by designerJonathan Anderson forLoewe which prominently featured an adapted version of Wojnarowicz's artworkF--- You F----- F----- depicting two men kissing while shaped as maps, with the support of the visual artist's estate.[44]
A list of Wojnarowicz's group exhibitions the year prior to his death.[45]
1991
The David Wojnarowicz Papers are at theFales Library atNew York University. The Fales Library also houses the papers of John Hall, a high school friend of Wojnarowicz. The papers include a small collection of letters from Wojnarowicz to Hall.
The David Wojnarowicz Foundation maintains an online research archive.
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