History:
David Wojnarowicz was born in New Jersey in 1954. He faced an abusive family, struggled with being a gay youth and he also dropped out of high school by the age of 16.
To survive, he forcefully obtained his needs, lived on the streets of New York City. He was prostituted, and hitchhiked across the country.
He settled in New York City’s east village and began his career, as a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist in 1978. His career ran as a sidestep with the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. His art reflected his own emotions, his grief, anger, frustration and fear. All this by drawing attention to American religious fundamentalism (religion, beliefs), conservatism, fear of the body, homophobia, economic imperialism, all while raising up the voices of stigmatized individuals, just like Keith Haring.
In the late 1980s, after he was diagnosed with AIDS, his art began to take on a slightly political edge and soon he was taking parts in highly public debates about medical research, funding, morality, censorship in the arts, and the legal rights of artists.
David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS in 1992 at the age of 37.
To survive, he forcefully obtained his needs, lived on the streets of New York City. He was prostituted, and hitchhiked across the country.
He settled in New York City’s east village and began his career, as a painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, and activist in 1978. His career ran as a sidestep with the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. His art reflected his own emotions, his grief, anger, frustration and fear. All this by drawing attention to American religious fundamentalism (religion, beliefs), conservatism, fear of the body, homophobia, economic imperialism, all while raising up the voices of stigmatized individuals, just like Keith Haring.
In the late 1980s, after he was diagnosed with AIDS, his art began to take on a slightly political edge and soon he was taking parts in highly public debates about medical research, funding, morality, censorship in the arts, and the legal rights of artists.
David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS in 1992 at the age of 37.
My opinion
Going through all those hardships must have been hard and I don’t think that most of us faced as bad. Yet he threw back all his youth into his artworks as he grew up. He had the courage to admit that he was gay and that he didn’t want to change who he was. He fought for gay rights, just as Keith Haring did, trying to raise voices and that is what attracted me to him character. His courage to face his past, to admit he was someone who at that time wasn’t considered appropriate. He is for me the best description for the word brave. Like Keith Haring, he continued to fight for gay rights and AIDS once he was diagnosed with it.