Snapshot of David Wojnarowicz’s jacket; ‘If I die of AIDS, forget burial – drop my body on the steps of the FDA” courtesy The David Wojnarowicz Papers, The Downtown Collection, Fales Library, New York University
Some scholars suggest that David Wojnarowicz’s jeans jacket proclaiming “If I die of AIDS—forget burial—just drop my body on the steps of the F.D.A.” was the world’s first meme.
You can see David’s influence on a younger generation in the sign reading, “If I die in a school shooting drop my body on the steps of the CDC,” carried by a student at a 2018 walkout for gun policy change.
We plan to use the Foundation’s Instagram to advance, and honor the legacy of David—his life, art, writing, and fierce commitment to social justice—while keeping supporters aware of our initiatives.
Please follow The David Wojnarowicz Foundation @WojFound on Instagram for all the latest news.
![“[David] was known for his deep sense of parrhesia: an obligation to speak out, even at personal risk. ”
— Lauren O’Neill-Butler
In December, 2010, demonstrators—wearing masks of David's face with lips stitched shut— protested en masse throughout the country after the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. removed his unfinished film, “A Fire in My Belly,” from the exhibition “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture.”
In defense of the film, critic Holland Cotter wrote: “That A Fire in My Belly is about spirituality, and about AIDS, is beyond doubt. To those caught up in the crisis, the worst years of the epidemic were like an extended Day of the Dead, a time of skulls and candles, corruption with promise of resurrection. Wojnarowicz was profoundly angry at a government that barely acknowledged the epidemic and at political forces that he believed used AIDS, and the art created in response, to demonize homosexuals.”
The Warhol Foundation, who financially supported “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” saw the removal of David’s film as “blatant censorship.” As a result they instituted an eight year ban against funding Smithsonian exhibitions which they lifted in 2019. “We believe that the ban has had its intended effect of promoting freedom of artistic expression at the national level,” Joel Wachs, the foundation’s president, said in the statement announcing the repeal.
Learn more about David’s activism in the new section of our website. Explore David's artwork, quotes, writing, and his own activist acts. See link in our profile.
Photo copyright and courtesy Theodore (Ted) Kerr.
@nationalgallery @smithsonian @hollandcotter @loneillbutler @warholfoundation @tedkerr @WojFound #DavidWojnarowicz #Wojnarowicz @wojfound](https://wojfound.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)