David Wojnarowicz: A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on the Lower East Side (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents) [Hardcover]

Sylvère Lotringer (Editor), Giancarlo Ambrosino (Editor), Chris Kraus (Editor), Hedi El Kholti (Editor), Justin Cavin (Editor), Jennifer Doyle (Afterword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1584350350 | ISBN-13: 978-1584350354 | Publication Date: November 3, 2006

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Artist, activist and icon of Manhattan's East Village in the 1980s, David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) worked in a wide range of media-from paintings to video to still photography to collage to rock and roll-emphasizing collaboration and community, and informed by his outrage against America's treatment of outsiders, in particular those suffering with AIDS. The volume's first part gathers 16 of cultural theorist Lotringer's interviews with Wojnarowicz's associates and intimates following his 1992 death, including prominent scenesters Carlo McCormick, Richard Kern, Bill Rice and Kiki Smith. Each interview is tagged, Web 2.0 style, with general subject headings-such as "The Pyramid Club," "ACT-UP" or "3 Teens Kill 4," Wojnarowicz's rock band-making for easy reference, but a bio for each interview subject might have proved more useful. Part two consists of three interviews with Wojnarowicz himself, conducted respectively by Lotringer, Wojnarowicz's close friend and photographer Nan Goldin, and the prosecuting attorney in a suit brought by Wojnarowicz against the American Family Association, who used his work in a pamphlet meant to discredit the NEA. Though a fascinating document, generously illustrated with artwork reproductions and photos from the era, this volume is less than definitive-there's no introduction to Wojnarowicz's life, nor to the artistic or political movements of the time-making it a work for those already immersed in the cultural history of the East Village.
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Review

"In this book of mesmerizing interviews with the late artist and his friends and collaborators, breathless recollections of famous graffiti, the night the dancing almost caved in the floor of the attic at PS1, and who worked the door at the Mudd Club gradually paint the very finest brushstrokes of a neighborhood's impressionistic history." Erick Lyle San Francisco Bay Chronicle

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 220 pages
• Publisher: Semiotext(e) (November 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584350350
• ISBN-13: 978-1584350354
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,021,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)