David Wojnarowicz

In the midst of the AIDS crisis, a young man from the suburbs moves to the big city of New York and ends up working as a hustler.

Loosely based on an infamous 1984 Long Island murder case involving Satan-worshiping, teenage drug freaks (Knights of the Black Circle), David Wojnarowicz and Tommy Turner’s Where Evil Dwells is a low-budget D.I.Y. movie that walks the jagged lines between splatter flick, experimental film and transgressive art. The original footage was destroyed in a fire and the only footage that survived is this 28 minute preview that was put together for the Downtown New York Film Festival in 1985.

Brutally abused by his parents, teenage Thomas finds comfort in associating with a film director who is making a documentary about physical child abuse. The two fall in love, and the elder is faced with the decision of either running away with Thomas or focusing on his career and thereby letting the boy possibly be beaten to death.

Elizabeth bristles at the religious directives of her parents, asserting her right to personhood outside demure hairstyles and turkey dinners, constructing voodoo dolls and entertaining other manners of dark drawing in her dank emo-den. When confronted with the humanity and hypocrisy of her tormentors, the young antihero vanquishes their belief systems (and bodies) asserting, "You killed me first!"

The series of five videos Collaborative Film Collection made in collaboration with Marion Scemama in 1989 is emblematic of Wojnarowicz's artistic practice, it unfolds through performance, films, photographs, texts and paintings. Taking a highly subjective point of departure he shares poetic and moving moments, moving through the material until his voice achieves a universal dimension.

Carlo McCormick was invited to curate an East Village Art show at a gallery in Richmond, Virginia. Filmmaker Tessa Hughes-Freeland took filmic evidence of the infamous exhibition that featured downtown artists such as David Wojnarowicz, Marilyn Minter, Luis Frangella and more painting naughty murals while on acid.

Promises: Through Congress is a collaboration between Julie Mehretu, electronic music composer Floating Points aka Sam Shepherd, and filmmaker Trevor Tweeten. This 46-minute film features Mehretu’s expansive painting Congress (2003) and Promises (Luaka Bop, 2021), the acclaimed album from Floating Points and jazz titan Pharoah Sanders featuring the London Symphony Orchestra. Filmed on location at The Broad in Los Angeles.

A fan tries to get an artist's attention by literally coming apart.

A crumbling pier, its walls covered with graffiti and erotic frescoes reminiscent of pagan Pompeii, the locus of the seduction rituals of men longing for men, is the focus of this meditation on gay cruising at the height of sexual freedom before AIDS. Shot in 1982, this is the first segment of a film capturing the life, death, and rebirth of the legendary “sex piers” over the last three decades.

A series of short films by Richard Kern: Stray Dogs, Woman At The Wheel, Thrust In Me, & I Hate You Now.

Immediately after David’s friend and mentor, photographer Peter Hujar, died of AIDS in a New York hospital on November 26, 1987, David took Super 8 images of Peter’s body and photographed Peter's face, hands, and feet. David created Unfinished film (sequence in memory of Peter Hujar), 1987, using these and other images. The unfinished, silent, black and white film includes: images of David's hands leafing through Peter's portfolios; David's AIDS Quilt square for Peter displayed in Central Park; urban and industrial street scapes; and several disparate images made in Peter’s East Village loft. “Everything I made, I made for Peter.”—David Wojnarowicz

An intriguing, powerful work, portraying a journey through the dark, ugly underbelly of a rough and disturbed America. Resembling a Situationist d rive, images from the streets of New York and the Las Vegas strip mingle with prison-like structures. Laid over the collage is the voice of artist and gay activist David Wojnarawicz relating stories of personal anguish and acts of violence.

An exploration concerning the act of revealing to a potential lover that one is seropositive to HIV, the virus believed to cause AIDS.

A collaboration between David Wojnarowicz and Steve Doughton.

Experimental short film that explores themes of religion, violence, and gender/masculinity.

Beautiful People was one of the last films David Wojnarowicz made before his death. The film follows Jesse Hultberg as he makes himself up in drag and ventures out onto the streets of New York, then beyond the city limits to a quiet lakeside.

1978–79. Slideshow, approx. 7 min. Courtesy the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W, New York.

ITSOFOMO (In the Shadow of Forward Motion) is a multimedia performance collaboration created by artist David Wojnarowicz and composer/musician Ben Neill in 1989. Integrating music, text, and video in a multi-dimensional format, the work embodies the act of acceleration and its sensory manifestations. It is through this frame that Wojnarowicz addressed the accelerating AIDS crisis and the politics of AIDS in the United States at that moment.

Unfinished David Wojnarowicz film that was salvaged by Marion Scemama from Fales Library.

In the summer of 1989 Marion, David and François Pain took a camera with them to the Adirondacks lakes region of New York State. Passing it from hand to hand they captured a video diary of a vacation spent together in freedom, creativity, love and melancholy. "Every day, the group filmed each other, experimenting with spontaneous, intimate moments. The camera moves between them, emotions are exchanged along with it. More than just documentation, the film reveals the way they looked at each other, created together, and made space for one another —friendship and collaboration as a tender, furious act of witnessing. David Wojnarowicz had known since 1988 that he had AIDS. In Summer 89, Marion’s eye is that of a friend, imbuing David’s gestures with memory of the love and friendship they shared." ~ Christina Demetriou

A close up head and shoulders of David Wojnarowicz, is the only image. He speaks with characteristic candor and ferocity about his experience being a person with AIDS.