David Wojnarowicz: A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on the Lower East Side

by Sylvère Lotringer (Interviews), Giancarlo Ambrosino (Editor), Hedi El Kholti (Co-Editor)

Artist David Wojnarowicz on his work, his aspirations, his personal history, his political views; Wojnarowicz in dialogue with Sylvère Lotringer, along with personal accounts from friends and fellow artists collected after Wojnarowicz's death.

In February 1991, the artist David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) and the philosopher Sylvère Lotringer met in a borrowed East Village apartment to conduct a long-awaited dialogue on Wojnarowicz's work. Wojnarowicz was then at the peak of his notoriety as the fiercest antagonist of morals crusader Senator Jesse Helms--a notoriety that Wojnarowicz alternately embraced and rejected. Already suffering the last stages of AIDS, David saw his dialogue with Lotringer as a chance to set the record straight on his aspirations, his personal history, and his political views. The two arranged to have this three-hour dialogue video-recorded by a mutual friend, the artist Marion Scemama. Lotringer held on to the tape for a long time. After Wojnarowicz's death the following year, he found the transcript enormously moving, yet somehow incomplete. David was trying, often with heartbreaking eloquence, to define not just his career but its position in time. The subject was huge, and transcended the actual dialogue. Lotringer then spent the next several years gathering additional commentary on Wojnarowicz's life and work from those who knew him best--the friends with whom he collaborated. Lotringer solicited personal testimony from Wojnarowicz's friends and other artists, including Mike Bildo, Steve Brown, Julia Scher, Richard Kern, Carlo McCormick, Ben Neill, Kiki Smith, Nan Goldin, Marguerite van Cook, and others. What emerges from these masterfully-conducted interviews is a surprising insight into something art history knows, but systematically hides: the collaborative nature of the work of any "great artist." All these respondents had, at one time, made performances, movies, sculptures, photographs, and other collaborative works with Wojnarowicz. In this sense, Wojnarowicz appears not only as a great originator, but as a great synthesizer.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Queer, Biography, Essays

220 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

Sylvère Lotringer (born in 1938 in Paris, France) is a literary critic and cultural theorist. A younger contemporary of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio and Michel Foucault, he is best known for synthesizing French theory with American literary, cultural and architectural avant-garde movements through his work with Semiotext(e); and for his interpretations of French theory in a 21st-century context. An influential interpreter of Jean Baudrillard's theories, Lotringer invented the concept "extrapolationist" as a means of describing the hyperbolic world-views espoused by Baudrillard and Paul Virilio. Lotringer is a Professor of Foreign Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a series of interviews, this 2006 volume presents the artist David Wojnarowicz as a multi-faceted, charismatic, and complicated inspiration and collaborator. However, the more I read the interviews somehow the less I felt that I "knew" Wojnarowicz.

My favourites sections are the interviews with Wojnarowicz himself, which helped me to appreciate why other creatives found him to be dazzling and inspirational. Now considered to be "one of the most influential and one of the least recognized artists to emerge from New York in the 1980s" Wojnarowicz was "prolific" and "stubbornly under-analyzed".

The well of creativity is profound and puzzling, and this particular well-spring is stubbornly continuing to produce—art that is messy, dirty, complicated, and perhaps even fun. Recently, there has been much interest in this artist (who died too young), including a show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the accompanying volume, David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night.

David Wojnarowicz, 1954-1992.

[Robert Vaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated the read, and the memories. Those photos alone are stunning reminders of a world in which we once lived. And while I enjoyed the glimpses of a David through his artist friends, more than the majority were from earlier on in his life. They didn't recall the David that I knew, more from the time when he became more involved in the politics of a New Yorker living with AIDS, ACT Up, etc. Still, I miss this man so much, and his writing and art still haunt me.

[Dylan Kiewel · Rating 4 out of 5]

my collecting of david books continues with a generous pickup of this courtesy of my friend Zachariah. :)

every book fills in a little more of the puzzle of who he was this time we get the testimony of some of his closest friends and collabers. i especially liked hearing from marguerite van cook about him as a painter, julie hair on him being in 3 teens kill 4, and most of all the long interview with nan goldin.

only complaints especially reading this alongside the similarly purposed chantal akerman : travelling book are it could've been better designed, more photos, could've asked contributors for rememberances going beyond simple interview format, more thoughtful, more personal, the marion scemama gets pretty personal though.

[D. Travers · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK so here's the deal:

This book consists mostly of interviews with folks who crossed paths with DW during a narrow period of the early 1980s. This is about the art scene, not HIV activism or anything else DW did.

There are 2 interviews with DW at the end of the book. The rest is asking people what they remember about him.

Not bad but... just so you know.

Nice photos of E Village artsiness,tho!

[Marissa Perel · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing document of artists who hung together about this remarkable one