Artforum, 2018
According to Artforum editors, by the time David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS, in July 1992, “He had become one of the era’s definitive artists, a protean maker. His delirious, often strident work cut a path across disciplinary lines, enlisting New York’s streets and his own idle dreams and becoming a touchstone for how others could respond to domination and the cruelty of what he termed ‘pre-invented existence.’”
Published in the summer of 2018, Artforum’s collection of articles titled “After Words: David Wojnarowicz” includes essays focused on David’s art, music, and writing, and appeared concurrent with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s retrospective of David’s work.
The collection includes excerpts from David’s taped journals, kept from 1981 to 1989, released on three LPs by sound artist Derek Baron, and transcribed and edited by Semiotext(e); biographer Cynthia Carr’s essay “Dead Alive,” describing her persistent grieving for David’s generation; artist and filmmaker William E. Jones on David’s writing as a means of overcoming alienation in Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration; Carlo McCormick on David’s post-punk band 3 Teens Kill 4; and Dirk Rowntree’s photographs of David working on New York’s Pier 34 from 1977 to 1983.
Additional resources re: “After Words: David Wojnarowicz.” New York: Artforum (Vol. 56, No. 10), 2018.
Artforum