Though he died at the age of 37 due to AIDS complications, David Wojnarowicz left a powerful legacy of avant-garde artmaking, passionate LGBTQ+ and disability activism, and withstanding friendships — all of which will be commemorated at the New York City AIDS Memorial Park. To celebrate what would have been the trailblazing artist’s 70th birthday, the NYC AIDS Memorial has partnered with the David Wojnarowicz Foundation, Visual AIDS, and PPOW Gallery for an interdisciplinary remembrance event on Saturday night, September 14.
The evening will begin with a collaborative stage reading of The Waterfront Journals (1997) — a posthumously published collection of the artist’s early-career autobiographical fiction tales inspired by the powerful voices he encountered during his chaotic coming of age, written as short monologues. The reading will be accompanied by a musical performance by the band Rimbaud Hattie, comprised of members from Wojnarowicz’s old band 3 Teens Kill 4: Doug Bressler, Julie Hair, and John Kelly.
The NYC AIDS Memorial is also slated to unveil a park bench dedicated to Wojnarowicz, memorializing his fervent activism to end the HIV/AIDS stigma from the ’80s until his untimely passing in 1992. Afterward, a candlelit procession will course along the westside waterfront to the LGBTQ Memorial at Hudson River Park.
“At Visual AIDS, we really value bringing people together to honor our histories and our spaces, so it’s meaningful that the event will end with a procession to the Hudson River waterfront, which holds so much queer and AIDS history,” said Kyle Croft, executive director of Visual AIDS, in an email to Hyperallergic.
“While he and so many other artists were lost before their time, this is an opportunity to meet a rich community of artists who hold so much living history,” Croft noted.
Wojnarowicz was born in New Jersey on September 14, 1954, and grew up shuttled between Long Island and Michigan with his siblings, enduring both neglect and abuse from his alcoholic father who abducted them after he divorced their mother. He and his siblings eventually located their mother in New York City and moved in with her during the mid-1960s. Used to being unsupervised and left to his devices, Wojnarowicz slipped into the seedy, underground counterculture of the city as a young teenager and began turning tricks to support himself while attending the prestigious High School of Music and Art in Manhattan.
The artist left his mother’s apartment and was unhoused during his late teens, squatting and sleeping in halfway houses while hustling. He traveled across the country and coursed through Paris before returning to the city and finding work as a busboy at the iconic nightclub Danceteria. Committed to life at the margins of society, Wojnarowicz formed 3 Teens Kill 4, documented the gritty lifestyles of the Lower East Side, and got involved with developing the alternative arts scene that took over the decrepit piers of Manhattan’s west side — a popular site for gay cruising at the time.
Wojnarowicz engaged with all sorts of media, from graffiti and street art murals to photography, poetry and writing, assemblage installations and sculpture, film and performance, painting, and works on paper. He was known for flouting conservative ideals and pushing boundaries with sexually explicit motifs. He became known for his activism, both visual and vocal, surrounding the AIDS crisis, having deployed his portrait for ACT UP’s “Silence = Death” campaign and fashioned an iconic denim jacket that read “If I die of AIDS, forget burial and drop my body on the steps of the FDA.”
His commitment to political activism heightened upon the loss of his close friend and mentor, American photographer Peter Hujar, who died of AIDS 1987. Wojnarowicz learned of his own diagnosis shortly after, and produced related artwork and literature until his death in 1992.
“Since our dedication in 2016, the New York City AIDS Memorial has been a truly special place to remember and reflect on the ongoing impacts of the AIDS crisis and we are honored to host this cross-generational gathering of creative energy to celebrate and honor David’s life and work,” said Dave Harp, executive director of the Memorial, in an email to Hyperallergic.
The remembrance event is set to begin at 5pm.
