Skip to main content

Reply to "David Wojnarowicz - Artist"

Hatches -- It was impressive to meet you, such a stately figure of consequence with a wise, yet subdued kindness. wink I hope you like the Jackie 60 Fashion Forward shwag, I apologize for the interruption in your stage performance last night (that was not my doing, ahem, Daddy - I much prefer being on the dance floor!)

-------------
As I continue to delve into NYC in the 80s, I find more and more information about DWs work and the artists he collaborated with. Just when I thought I had a comprehensive list (albeit short from imdb.com). I went in search of information on director Tommy Turner. About whom I could only find his name listed in the credits -- no personal insights whatsoever, on about 50 web sites.

What is ironic about this is, only four days ago, I found myself a bit disoriented in the Lower East Side (F train skipped the 2nd Ave stop and I got out at Delancy). As I was standing there getting my barring, I ran into Zedd (who came to my rescue). Headed the same way, he pretty much led me within a block of my destination. Although we did have an interesting chat ... had I known then I'd be looking for some nugget of information about this person, I could have just asked him. But the Turner search, in truth, led me to loads more DW film and video references. So this is just part one, when I find more information on the titles that are just titles at the moment, I will add them. Also coming along audio listings and hopefully a visual gallery unique to the MBoards. Tonya

Stray Dogs (1985) Actor: Fan
Directed by Richard Kern (1985), Short
Credited cast: William Rice, Artist; David Wojnarowicz, Fan; Robin Renzi, Woman; and Montanna Houston, Bum.
User Comments: Would you die for Art? - imdb.com

You Killed Me First (1985) Actor: Dad
Directed by Richard Kern, Short
Lung Leg, Elizabeth (as Lung); David Wojnarowicz, Dad (as D. Wojnarowicz); Karen Finley, Mom; Jessica Craig-Martin, Sister; Montanna, Cheese; and N. Cooper (II), Nick.
User Comments: Should've been an afterschool special! - imdb.com

Manhattan Love Suicides (1985) Actor
Written and directed by, Richard Kern, Short
Credited cast: Bill Rice, David Wojnarowicz and Nick Zedd
About: Richard Kern produces Super-8 films that explore the dark side of human nature with surprising humor. Whether parodying B movies (Manhattan Love Suicides), TV docudramas (You Killed Me First), exploitation films (Submit To Me, Submit to Me Now), or pushing the limits of the music video format (Death Valley '69, Moneylove), Kern's work addresses taboo subjects with a candor un-paralleled in contemporary "underground" cinema. While largely fictional, his films are also a unique document of New York subculture during the 1980s, featuring many of its most celebrated and notorious figures, such as Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, Karen Finley, David Wojnarowicz, Nick Zedd and Sonic Youth. Richard Kern is a master of explosively sexual and violent filmmaking. His films are so shocking that they have stayed mostly within the realms of the underground, although his films have been distributed worldwide. He has risen from his beginnings in lo-fi, self-distributed shock-movies to create music videos for the likes of Marilyn Manson, King Missile, and Unsane. Hardcore DVD, from which the Sonic Youth track was excerpted, features 13 provocative short films by Kern, and is definitely for mature audiences only. Manhattan Love Suicides: 180 minutes of rare, color & B&W film shorts with Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins and more. Includes films such as Death Valley 69, The Right Side Of My Brain, You Killed Me First, The Bitches, The Sewing Circle, Horoscope, and Evil Cameraman. Music from Sonic Youth, Cop Shoot Cop, Dream Syndicate, Foetus Inc., and The Butthole Surfers. – thekitchen.org / throttlebox.com

Aids-Trilogie: Schweigen = Tod, Die (1990);
Schweigen = Tod (1990) (Germany: short title)
aka Silence = Death (1990) (USA) Actor: Himself ...
Directed by Rosa von Praunheim, Documentary

Postcards from America (1994) Writer:
Directed by: Steve McLean
Review 1: Postcards from America was filmed in the US but directed by a Brit (Steve McLean) who was inspired by the poems and essays of David Wojnarowicz who died of AIDS in 1993. This is essentially a non-chronological life story of a very unhappy gay man. Apparently, it is based much more on McLean's own life than on Wojnarowicz's. The story keeps jumping between a child abused by his father, a teenage hustler on the streets of New York, and a grown man wandering the Southwest desert. Obviously filmed with a negligible budget, the movie is inventive but comes off largely as a filmed play with characters often talking directly to the camera. It doesn't extactly leave you whistling a tune as you leave the theater, but you do feel like you've gotten some insight into another person's life--even if it is largely fictionalized. (Seen 19 May 1995) – scottsmovies.com
Review 2: Based on the writings of artist David Wojnarowicz, Postcards From America weaves together three semi-fictional stories from the life of a young gay man named David, during three different times in his life. In his early years, a violent suburban childhood is spent with an abusive father in New Jersey in the early 1960's. It leads to his years as a teenage hustler on the streets of New York, and eventually to his adult fascination with anonymous sex, the American desert and the open road. – wolfevideo.com

Where Evil Dwells (The Trailer) (1986)
Co-directed with Tommy Turner
Evil is a collaboration between filmmaker Turner and the late artist/writer David Wojnarowicz, based on the infamous "Satan Teen" Ricky Kasso, who killed himself in jail after he and a friend had been accused of murdering another boy in a satanic ritual in Long Island, N.Y. This trailer, all that remains of the feature destroyed in a fire, stars Wojnarowicz, Turner, Scott Werner, Joe Coleman, Jack Nantz, Baby Gregor, Rockets Redglare, Richard Klemann, Charlotte Webb, Lung Leg, Devil Doodie; music by Jim Thirwell & Wiseblood. - edgerow.com

THE FEAR OF DISCLOSURE PROJECT (Creative Time City Wide 1989) Video with Phil Zwickler
-- Film/Video Series Produced by Jonathan Lee 1989-1994
The Fear of Disclosure Project was initiated in 1989 by the late Phil Zwickler and was produced by Jonathan Lee. Over five years four film/videos exploring the topic of revealing HIV status in differing communities were produced. The project's earliest video Fear of Disclosure, 1989, by Phil Zwickler and David Wojnarowicz is an examination of the difficulties of revealing HIV status for gay men. (In)Visible Women, 1991, by Ellen Spiro and Marina Alvarez addresses HIV issues for women in the Latino/Latina community. This documentary focuses on how three women with AIDS explode notions of female invisibility and complacency in the face of the epidemic. Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret), 1992, by Marlon T. Riggs explores HIV-related issues as they pertain to gay African-American men and focuses on five individual confrontations through music, poetry and at times chilling self disclosure. Out in Silence and Not a Simple Story, 1994, both directed by Christine Choy, offer a perspective on HIV-positive status in the Asian-American Community and shows Asian Pacific Americans who have chosen to use their HIV positive status to remedy the lack of information and denial about AIDS in their communities. - creativetime.com

BUST
Richard Morrison, US 1991, video, 15mins
Flickering and disappearing into a black screen, Wojnarowicz's talking head attacks the authorities' handling of AIDS and our cultural (mis)understanding of death: "No-one should act polite in the face of being slowly murdered" - outuk.com

HEROIN
originally DW, US 1979, this version constructed by the Estate Project, silent B/W, super8-16mm, c.5mins
Stunning, stylised photography describes the fatal poignancy of the film's title. - outuk.com

FIRE IN MY BELLY
originally DW, US 1987, this version constructed by the Estate Project, silent B/W & Colour, super8-16mm, c.30mins
Possibly Wojnarowicz's finest cinematic work, a film that he repeatedly dissembled and put back together; a suspended plastic eyeball revolves like the globe, newspaper headlines describe death and murder, a kid breathes actual and prophetic fire on the streets of Mexico. - outuk.com

East Village Compilation (1989) Actor
Directed by: Jim Covary, Compilation
Artist's-eye view of the tumultuous mid-eighties East Village scene. A fast-paced, jarringly soundtracked montage capturing the fun, the famous, and the forgotten at Limbo Lounge, Danceteria, Shuttle Theater, Rivington Street, 8 BC, Fashion Moda, and elsewhere. Features Karen Finley, Gary Indiana, grafitti pioneer Tracy 168, Missing Foundation, John Cage reading at Area, Miguel Pinero, Rat At Rat R, Robert Parker making sculpture out of a taxi, Rick Prol painting, David Wojnarowicz and Richard Kern's tableaux du mort You Killed Me First at Ground Zero; Joe Coleman exploding himself and geeking mice; Life Cafe art auction at 8 BC; gallery openings galore, and more. - brickhaus.com

-------------
High Art (1998) Contributing artist
Last edited {1}
×
×
×
×