David Wojnarowicz (1954 - 1992) was a gay painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist who was prominent in the New York City art world of the 1980s. He was born on September 14, 1954 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. From 1970 until 1973, after dropping out of school, he for a time lived on the streets of New York City and worked as a farmer on the Canadian border. Upon returning to New York City, he saw a particularly prolific period for his artwork from the late 1970's through the 1980's. During this period, 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. In 1985, he was included in the Whitney Biennial, the so-called Graffiti Show In the 1990's, he fought and was issued an injunction against Donald Wildmon and the American Family Association on the grounds that Wojnarowicz's work been had copied and distorted in violation of the New York Artists' Authorship Rights Act. See Wojnarowicz v. American Family Association, 745 F.Supp 130 (1990). Wojnarowicz died of AIDS on July 22, 1992.

Books

• Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration. (1991). Vintage Books.
• Tongues Of Flame
• Memories That Smell Like Gasoline.
• The Waterfront Journals. (1997). Grove/Atlantic.
• Rimbaud In New York 1978 - 1979. (with Andrew Roth)
• In the Shadow of the American Dream: The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz (Amy Scholder, editor)
• Willie World (illustrator; written by Maggie J. Dubris)

Films

• Postcards From America - a non-linear biography of David Wojnarowicz (Steve McLean, director)

Critical studies and adaptations

• David Wojnarowicz: Brush Fires in the Social Landscape. (1995). Aperture.
• Wojnarowicz, David, Romberger, James, and Van Cook, Marguerite. Seven Miles a Second. (1996). DC Comics. (Autobiographical comic book partly scripted by Wojnarowicz, partly adapted posthumously from his diaries.)
• Wojnarowicz, David, et al., ed. Amy Scholder. Fever: The Art of David Wojnarowicz. (1999). New Museum Books.

External links

• David Wojnarowicz by Dan Cameron and Dennis Szakacs
• David Wojnarowicz Reading
• David Wojnarowicz Papers at Fales Library, New York University.

1954 births | 1992 deaths | American painters | Gay artists | Gay writers | AIDS-related deaths