True to his self-taught background, David Wojnarowicz challenged the boundaries between languages, media, and actions, and escaped one-dimensional definitions: he was a painter, musician, photographer, writer, Super 8 filmmaker, and a key figure in the vibrant social and cultural scene of New York’s East Village in the 1980s. His visceral work stands out for its collaborative spirit – in fluid communion with others – but also for its rebelliousness. A member of the ACT UP collective, Wojnarowicz was a deeply involved activist in the identity politics of homosexuals before and during the AIDS epidemic, a disease that took away friends and loves and ultimately claimed him in 1992, at the age of 37.
This book reveals the backstage of the settings that are the protagonists of his most famous works, and features the constant record of his body, which sharpens when he receives his HIV-positive diagnosis. He is aware that he has contracted a virus that also embodies the worst of a sick society; one that increasingly marginalizes and excludes dissidents and abandons them to their fate. In the shadow of the American dream, it displays the private record of a sensitive and committed Wojnarowicz, overwhelmed by the demands of survival, pursuing pleasure and freedom even when there is no more light at the end of the tunnel.
