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In light of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, David Wojnarowicz: Photography & Film 1978-1992 closed on Sunday, March 15.
The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is pleased to present David Wojnarowicz: Photography & Film 1978–1992, the first exhibition to solely concentrate on the artist’s photographic and filmic work. The exhibition presents over 100 works including photographs, test prints, silkscreens, 16 mm and Super 8 film and collaborative video works. David Wojnarowicz (1954–1992) came into prominence in the New York art world of the 1980s, actively embracing all media and forging an expansive range of work both fiercely political and highly personal. Although largely self-taught, he worked as an artist and writer to merge a sophisticated combination of found and discarded material with a deep understanding of literary influences. First displayed in storefront galleries in the East Village, his work had already gained national prominence by the time he was diagnosed with HIV in 1988. From the late 1970s until his death in 1992, Wojnarowicz produced a body of work that was as conceptually rigorous as it was stylistically diverse, resolutely and fervently political at a time when the AIDS epidemic was cutting down a generation of artists due in large part to government inaction in the United States. David Wojnarowicz: Photography & Film 1978–1992 reflects on Wojnarowicz as a source for both art-making and activism at a time of political and personal uncertainty. The exhibition sheds light on a practice that has been exemplary and inspirational, not only for his contemporaries but also for current generations.This exhibition contains adult content. Please note that certain parts of the exhibition are only accessible by stairs. A digital tablet with images of the works in these areas is available at the Reception Desk.
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As part of the exhibition David Wojnarowicz: Photography & Film 1978-1992, Listening Party brings the artist's tape journals into the space of his photographic and filmic work. Amongst Wojnarowicz's archival papers, which are held at Fales Library and Special Collection at New York University's Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, is a vast collection of audio journals on cassette tapes that he began in the early 1980s. The tapes document Wojnarowicz recalling long and complicated dreams, reflecting on love affairs, the New York art scene and, in later tapes, processing the death from AIDS of his best friend and mentor Peter Hujar in 1987, as well as of his own experience living with AIDS. Three tapes from this collection, marked with yellow masking tape and labelled CROSS COUNTRY / Great Dreams document the two westward trips Wojnarowicz took in 1989.
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In partnership with the Cinémathèque and the Griffin Art Project, we are pleased to present the film and lecture series To Rage to Live: Queer Film Legacies and the Work of David Wojnarowicz and Marlon Riggs. This event is realized in conjunction with our current exhibition David Wojnarowicz: Photography & Film 1978-1992, as well as Griffin Art Project exhibition The Sodomite Invasion: Experimentation, Politics and Sexuality in the work of Jimmy DeSana and Marlon T. Riggs.[more]