Sakarit Chankaew, Cock-a-bunny: a reimagined collage inspired by David Wojnarowicz’s whimsical transformation of cockroaches with bunny ears and cotton tail based on Peter Hujar photo (image from contact sheet 2013.108:8.4280 courtesy The Morgan Library & Museum. Peter Hujar Collection, Morgan Library & Museum, New York)
Taking the ‘S’ Out of ‘Pest’
In 1981, David Wojnarowicz befriended twenty-one year-old Sophie Breer, an artist and co-worker at the Peppermint Lounge. David delighted Breer at the “Pep” with antics such as letting a costumed cockroach out of a jar to run across the bar at 3am. Amused, Sophie rented a Betamax camera to create the film Waje’s Cockabunnies. In the style of the mid-century children’s show Romper Room, her 14-minute video features David attaching bunny ears and cottontails to cockroaches he found in his apartment.
Waje’s Cockabunnies captures David’s whimsical creative process, undoubtedly shaped by his personal and political agenda, as he sits at a child’s desk and uses paper, scissors, rubber cement and Q-tips to provide the roaches with their costumes. Surrounded by his friends Sophie, filmmaker Emily Breer (Sophie’s younger sister), and David Baillie (Emily’s boyfriend), David concludes his playful demonstration with the insects’ invitation to a Roach Motel.
David’s biographer, Cynthia Carr, describes the “cock-a-bunnies” as “creepy-cute, a riveting combination” while Breer humorously asks on camera if David is “taking the ‘s’ out of ‘pest.’” Art critic Carlo McCormick remembers David once entering a cock-a-bunny in a contest for the most horrible pet at The Pyramid Club “to celebrate the squalor and poverty of our lives.”
