David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night

This exhibition is the first major, monographic presentation of the work of David Wojnarowicz (1954–1992) in over a decade.

Wojnarowicz came to prominence in the East Village 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 meld a sophisticated combination of found and discarded materials with an uncanny understanding of literary influences.

First displayed in raw storefront galleries, his work achieved national prominence at the same moment that the AIDS epidemic was cutting down a generation of artists, himself included. This presentation draws upon recently-available scholarly resources and the Whitney’s extensive holdings of Wojnarowicz’s work.

Credit: Exhibition overview from the Whitney Museum website

Image: David Wojnarowicz with Tom Warren, Self-Portrait of David Wojnarowicz (1983–84). Photograph by Ron Amstut

Whether or not you go, the exhibition catalog, David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night,  is an engaging and richly-illustrated comprehensive exploration of the life and art of David Wojnarowicz (1954–1992).  In a thoughtful overview essay, David Breslin looks at the breadth of the artist’s work as well as Wojnarowicz’s broad range of interests and influences, situating the artist in the art-historical canon and pushing beyond the biographical focus that has characterized much of the scholarship on Wojnarowicz to fully assess his paintings, photographs, installations, performances, and writing. A close examination of groups of works by David Kiehl sheds new light on the artist’s process and the context in which the works were created. Other essays investigate the relationship between artistic production and cultural activism during the AIDS crisis, as well as provide a necessary accounting and close evaluation of divergent practices that have frequently been subsumed under broad labels like “East Village,” “queer,” “postmodern,” and “neo-expressionist.”

Select David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night to learn more, or to place this book in your Amazon shopping cart.  Your Amazon purchase through this link supports ArtGeek with a small commission.