This image serves a double purpose for me—as Wojnarowicz is an artist whom I personally have been very inspired by—both by his artwork and his political activism (and how he was able to integrate both into his work and exhibitions), and for ACT UP, the group that I also participated in after arriving in New York City in 1989 after graduating from college.  I directly refenced Wojnarowicz in the first paintings and drawings I made in graduate school, and still have a vivid memory of the impact his work made on me as a young man.  I also was active in ACT UP in those years, protesting at some of the big actions and attending meetings, fighting for the rights for LGBTQ+ and all people for health care, politics surrounding HIV + and our bodies.

Also, I think it’s interesting in context to other works of mine in the Whitney collection, specifically my Irascibles painting, another work of mine portraying famous artists.  

After I graduated from Brown in 1988, I moved to NYC and was a part of the ACT UP movement, going to meetings and protests, and in a way coming into my own skin as a gay man, after coming out in college to my family and friends.  I remember seeing David leaning against the wall outside the Village East Cinema, where he was living in Peter Hujar’s old apartment, and seeing him present one of his films at the Public Theater.  I was too intimidated by his fame to approach him, which I sadly now regret, as he and his work have had such an influence on me.  When I first saw one of his installations back at that time at the New Museum, as a neophyte artist just out of school, I inquired to my then artist boyfriend why, although stirring, wasn’t “beautiful” or seemed “anti-aesthetic”.  He turned to me and asked if it was a beautiful world, when so many people were dying of AIDS related causes, and how the artwork was reflective to be affective of that dismal time. I understood then the power of art to help teach and persuade, and how “political art” is hard but urgent to make.  If a work is too “artful” or beautiful, perhaps it loses its politics, if it is too political, perhaps it loses it artfulness—and Wojnarowicz in all his work strikes the exact right balance.  Both his recent Whitney retrospective and his arts pervasiveness in our culture prove this—although AIDS of course is still a huge issue, it’s not the killer it used to be in Wojnarowicz’s time, and although we still have oppressive politics, they are not the same as in the 80’s and early 90’s, yet Wojnarowicz’s work is still both pertinent our moment while being historic, and timeless.  Of course, he was also an active member in the ACT UP movement, and I’m hoping that this drawing both encapsulates his leadership both in ACT UP and in the art culture wars (I also came to NYC during the time of the NEA controversies and worked at Robert Miller Gallery that represented Mapplethorpe just after his death and during the “obscenity trials” of his Perfect Moment retrospective in Cincinnati).

While rendering, I listened to the audio books of his Close to the Knives and his writings anthologized In the Shadow of the American Dream which were so excellent and inspiring.  Wojnarowicz originally wanted to be a writer, and his work, following the likes of his heroes, Rimbaud, Genet, and Burroughs, is very synesthetic and true to his experience and period, that also still resonates today.  A “working-class hero”, Wojnarowicz, like his heroes, travelled amongst the subproletariats–on trains, the street, and infamously with the denizens of the NYC gay piers.  His writing is so evocative of those times, but also political, as not only in the lifestyle, actions, and dreams of himself and his characters, but also specifically in the tracts regarding Jesse Helms, Reagan, and the conservative movement of his era.  I also dove into the many artbooks I have of his, including the amazing Whitney retrospective catalog, and some of which I’ve owned (including the Perfect Moment catalog) since they were published.  Of an artist of great integrity, and one who is a narrative artist who espouses in his life and work the agency of himself as a queer man but also for the agency of all others, Wojnarowicz is my hero and it was wonderful to create, and “channel” his presence while rendering.

I am also indebted to ACT UP for all they have done for humankind, not just for AIDS related causes, but to ideas of owning one’s body and rights for healthcare, and for the organization that helped to formulate the queer culture and society that I grew up in as an adult, an identity of queerdom somewhat different that the gay identity previous to this era, that I feel much a part of still in my stridency of my own agency within culture and art.  I have written elsewhere about ACT UP and my involvement (I’m also attaching my notes here for that work), and proud that my painting of ACT UP protestors is now part of the permanent collection of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, but being a part of this movement was a formative part of my life, and I’m forever indebted.  The ACT UP organization (and now the Treatment Action Group in addition to different outgrowths) was an incredible amalgamation of not just gay men, but all the LGBTQ+ communities, and straight people of all stripes, and subsets of different action groups under their umbrella, that were all able to coalesce and be invigorated by working with the larger organization.  As both an organization that worked within and outwardly in protest institutions, health organizations, and government, ACT UP was extremely effective in the fight for AIDS related treatments, and healthcare being a right for all people.  Using skills and strategies from the Civil Rights and Women’s/Feminists Movements, they were able to combat the oppressive and negligent evils of their time, and used wit, and importantly artistic, design, and performance ideas to invigorate and popularize their cause.  I remember distinctly seeing my first “Silence = Death” insignia spraypainted on the sidewalk at Brown, compelling me to think deeply about my own identity and coming out in addition to the politics of the movement, which led me to come out in full, and join the movement and be a part of the culture in my early adult life as a gay man.