David Wojnarowicz
| David Wojnarowicz | |
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David Wojnarowicz, from the book Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz
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| Born |
September 14, 1954 Red Bank, New Jersey, United States |
| Died | July 22, 1992 (aged 37) New York City, New York, United States |
| Nationality | American |
David Wojnarowicz (/ˌvɔɪnəˈroʊvɪtʃ/ VOY-nə-ROH-vich; September 14, 1954 – July 22, 1992) was an American painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and AIDS activist prominent in the New York City art world.
Wojnarowicz was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, and later lived with his mother in New York City, where he attended the High School of Performing Arts for a brief period. A victim of childhood abuse, he lived for a time during his teenage years as a street hustler; he graduated from the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan.
After a period outside of New York, he returned in the late 1970s, where he quickly emerged as one of the most prominent and prolific of an avant-garde wing that mixed media, made and used graffiti and street art; his first recognition came from stencils of houses afire that appeared on the exposed sides of buildings in the East Village. He made super-8 films, such as Heroin, began a photographic series of Arthur Rimbaud, did stencil work, played in a band called 3 Teens Kill 4, and exhibited his work in well-known East Village galleries, notably Civilian Warfare, Ground Zero Gallery NY, Public Illumination Picture Gallery, Gracie Mansion and Hal Bromm. Wojnarowicz was also connected to other prolific artists of the time, appearing in or collaborating on works with artists like Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar, Luis Frangella, Karen Finley, Kiki Smith, John Fekner, Richard Kern, James Romberger, Marguerite Van Cook, Ben Neill, Marion Scemama and Phil Zwickler. For some years, until Hujar's death of AIDS in 1987, he and Hujar were lovers. Hujar's death moved Wojnarowicz's work into much more explicit activism and political content, notably around the injustices, social and legal, inherent in the response to the AIDS epidemic.
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