Gifted by David Wojnarowicz to his friend and mentor Luis Frangella, Untitled (Wolf) may, in some ways, be considered a self-portrait of the artist. Among the characters depicted in Wojnarowicz’s posthumously published series of monologues, The Waterfront Journals, is a young hustler who dubs himself a “wolf child” and describes circumstances similar to those of Wojnarowicz's intense and traumatic youth. “Made feral by his sense of utter alienation,” as Emily Dinsdale observed, Wojnarowicz's young character narrates, “I’m looking back inside my head with my eyes wide open. I still don’t know where I’m going; I decided I’m not crazy or alien. It’s just that I’m more like one of those kids they find in remote jungles or forests of India. A wolf child. And they’ve dragged me into this fucking schizo-culture, snarling and spitting and walking around on curled knuckles.”
Elsewhere, in his memoir, Wojnarowicz likened himself to a wolf more explicitly: “Feeling animalistic,” he wrote. “Feeling Hyena. Feeling Wolf. Feeling Dog. I am tongue and heart.” Made in 1983, Untitled (Wolf)depicts the archetypal lone animal with soft lines that render the creature to be quite doggish, emphasizing a tension between wildness and domestication while also potentially gesturing towards American pop culture, commercialism, and conformism through playing with a cartoonish style. Wojnarowicz, who brought an unflinching glare and righteous anger to structural social oppression in the U.S., resisted pressure to adopt a single medium or signature style; Untitled (Wolf)slyly reflects his defiance in both content and form.
Hell is a place on earth. Heaven is a place in your head.
David Wojnarowicz
David Wojnarowicz 1954–1992
Painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, songwriter/recording artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz’s work was heavily influenced by his difficult childhood and even more traumatic young adulthood. Born in New Jersey, he had an abusive father and as a child struggled not only with the physical and mental effects of that abuse, but also with an emerging sense of his own homosexuality. By the tender age of sixteen he had dropped out of highschool and began working as a street hustler in Times Square. He hitchhiked several times across the United States and lived for short periods in San Francisco and even Paris, all before settling in New York’s East Village in 1978.
Wojnarowicz quickly emerged as an important voice in the East Village avant-garde art scene, drawing upon his personal history and the myriad of stories he absorbed on his travels to create art that challenged viewers and gave voice to individuals stigmatized by society. In 1985, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial and he was soon showing in museums and galleries throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America. He collaborated with other prolific artists of the time, including Nan Goldin, Kiki Smith, and Peter Hujar, who would become his lover and mentor and remained an important fixture in Wojnarowicz’s life until Hujar’s untimely death in 1987 from AIDS. Hujar’s death, and Wojnarowicz’s own AIDS diagnosis around the same time, moved the artist to create even more starkly political and explicit works, especially in relation to the social and legal injustices of the AIDS epidemic.
The nature of Wojnarowicz’s work–sharply critical of societal norms, the treatment of gay people, the government’s handling of the AIDS crisis, and often containing difficult, violent, or pornographic subject matter–led to his entanglement in public debates about medical research and funding, morality and censorship in the arts, and the legal rights of artists. He died at the age of 37 from AIDS-related complications, but his life and work continue to inspire artists and activists to the present day. His artwork can be found in many public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Auction Results David Wojnarowicz
30: 20
Essential Design
11:00 am ct
