Bøger af David Wojnarowicz

The powerful, personal and iconoclastic memoir of David Wojnarowicz, AIDS activist, author and one of the most provocative artists of his generation. With a new introduction by Olivia Laing.

An epistolary portrait of Wojnarowicz's formation as an artist and writer through his tender letters to his Parisian lover--with artwork, photographs and ephemeraThis volume collects David Wojnarowicz's transatlantic correspondence to his Parisian lover Jean Pierre Delage between 1979 and 1982. Capturing a truly foundational moment for Wojnarowicz's artistic and literary practice, these letters not only reveal his captivating personality--and its concomitant compassion, neuroses and tenderness--but also index the development of the visual language that would go on to codify him as one of the preeminent artists of his generation.Through this collection, readers are introduced to Wojnarowicz's Rimbaud series, his band 3 Teens Kill 4, the publication of his first photographs, his early friendship with Peter Hujar, his participation in the then-emerging East Village art and music scenes, and the preparations for the publication of his first book. Included with these writings are postcards, drawings, xeroxes, photo-graphs, collages, flyers, ephemera and contact sheets that showcase some of the artist's iconic images and work, such as the Burning House motif and Untitled (Genet, after Brassai).Beyond these milestones, the book offers a striking portrayal of Wojnarowicz as a 20-something detailing his day-to-day life with the type of unbridled earnestness that comes with his age and the softness of love and longing. This disarming tenderness provides a picture of a young man who is just beginning to find his voice in the world and the love he has discovered in it. Although the two exchanged letters in equal measure, Delage's correspondences have largely been lost, leaving us with only a revelatory glimpse into the internal world of Wojnarowicz during what turned out to be his formative years.Painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, songwriter and activist, David Wojnarowicz was born in Redbank, New Jersey, in 1954 and died of AIDS in New York in 1992. He authored five books, most famously Close to the Knives. Wojnarowicz attained national prominence as a writer and advocate for AIDS awareness and for his stance against censorship. His work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, among other institutions.

Not content to be a tremendous photographer, painter, filmmaker, performance artist and activist David Wojnarowicz (1954-92) was also the author of three classic books: Close to the Knives, The Waterfront Journals and Memories That Smell Like Gasoline, now back in print from Artspace. This volume collects four tales--"Into the Drift and Sway," "Doing Time in a Disposable Body," "Spiral" and the title story--interspersed with ink drawings by the artist. "Sometimes it gets dark in here behind these eyes I feel like the physical equivalent of a scream. The highway at night in the headlights of this speeding car speeding is the only motion that lets the heart unravel and in the wind of the road the two story framed houses appear one after the other like some cinematic stage set..." From these opening sentences of the book (in "Into the Drift and Sway"), Wojnarowicz lets loose a salvo of explicit gay sexual reverie harshly lit by the New York cityscape.

From the author of Close to the Knives, a series of fictional monologues that create a visceral and carnivalesque mosaic of life at the fringes of late-80s America. The Waterfront Journals is a collection of monologues, each ventriloquising one of the many people whom Wojnarowicz met on his travels throughout America while he was sleeping rough. We meet these down and outs in unassuming locations - in truck stops, bus stations and parks - and taken together their voices form a poignant chorus that distils the desires, dreams and dangers of those people whose lives confined are to the margins.

Audio journals that document Wojnarowicz's turbulent attempts to understand his anxieties and passions, and tracking his thoughts as they develop in real time.In these moments I hate language. I hate what words are like, I hate the idea of putting these preformed gestures on the tip of my tongue, or through my lips, or through the inside of my mouth, forming sounds to approximate something that's like a cyclone, or something that's like a flood, or something that's like a weather system that's out of control, that's dangerous, or alarming.... It just seems like sounds that have been uttered back and forth maybe now over centuries. And it always boils down to the same meaning within those sounds, unless you're more intense uttering them, or you precede them or accompany them with certain forms of violence.—from The Weight of the EarthArtist, writer, and activist David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) was an important figure in the downtown New York art scene. His art was preoccupied with sex, death, violence, and the limitations of language. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, Wojnarowicz began keeping audio journals, returning to a practice he'd begun in his youth.The Weight of the Earth presents transcripts of these tapes, documenting Wojnarowicz's turbulent attempts to understand his anxieties and passions, and tracking his thoughts as they develop in real time.In these taped diaries, Wojnarowicz talks about his frustrations with the art world, recounts his dreams, and describes his rage, fear, and confusion about his HIV diagnosis. Primarily spanning the years 1987 and 1989, recorded as Wojnarowicz took solitary road trips around the United States or ruminated in his New York loft, the audio journals are an intimate and affecting record of an artist facing death. By turns despairing, funny, exalted, and angry, this volume covers a period largely missing from Wojnarowicz's written journals, providing us with an essential new record of a singular American voice.

David Wojnarowiczs use of photography, at times in conjunction with text and painting, was extraordinary, as was his unprecedented way of addressing the AIDS crisis and issues of censorship, homophobia, and narrative. This book address Wojnarowiczs profound legacy: the relentless tugs, allegiances, censorship, and ethical issues.