David Wojnarowicz

David Wojnarowicz is known more for his writing, art and AIDS activism than his acting. He was born in Red Bank, New Jersey in 1954, into a terrible family setting. David's father abused him and the rest of the family, occasionally brandishing a gun and shooting the house up. By the age of 16, David had left home and relocated to NYC.With no money or education, David turned tricks in the city in order to survive. At this point, he also began using intravenous drugs. He began to hitchhike repeatedly across the United States and travel more extensively, living for a period of several months in San Francisco, as well as several months in Paris, France, before finally settling in NYC in 1978.While in NYC, he began gathering a series of monologues from homeless people, hookers, drug addicts, and the like. He was able to find a publisher, and these narratives can now be found in his book Sounds in the Distance (1982). He also met other artists such as Joe Coleman, Andreas Cerano, Lydia Lunch, Nick Zedd, and Richard Kern. He had a minor role in Kern's Manhattan Love Suicides (1985) as a retarded stalker. He then co-starred in You Killed Me First (1985) along with fellow artist Karen Finley. In the latter film, David acts out the role of a violent father, brandishing a gun at the family supper table.Broke and living hand to mouth, David continued to grow and develop as an artist. Despite lingering in obscurity for some time, a favorable review in the Village Voice in the early/mid-1980's brought an unexpected windfall of cash his way. Money after that was not a problem. It was at this time that he met French-Moroccan artist Marion Scemama, who had been sent by the French magazine ICI New York to interview him during the period of his work at the Christopher Street Pier. His arrival as an artist was firmly established by the time of publication of Weight of the Earth, Parts I and II (1988), arrangements of black and white photographs documenting his travels and life in NYC.However, a much more serious problem had overtaken David's life and influenced his art until his death. Wojnarowicz had contracted HIV, which was devastating the New York art scene (other famous casualties include Keith Haring). David's work, now mostly writing and audio journals, became increasingly turbulent, acerbic, and political, lashing out at the Reagan administration for lack of medical and research funding and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding, and defending artists' rights, particularly the right to free speech. He sued the American Family Association of Tupelo, Mississippi for the misrepresentation of his work and damage to his reputation, and won.During this period, he suffered from the terrible side effects of drugs such as AZT. He also had to fight hard to not be evicted from his apartment during the course of his illness.David Wojnarowicz finally succumbed to complications of the disease AIDS in 1992. Show less «