Weight of the Earth

The Tape Journals of David Wojnarowicz

184 pages

English language

Published May 8, 2018 by MIT Press.

ISBN:
978-1-63590-017-0
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OCLC Number:
1002291789

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Artist, writer, and activist David Wojnarowicz (1954–1992) was an important figure in the downtown New York art scene. His art was preoccupied with sex, death, violence, and the limitations of language. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, Wojnarowicz began keeping audio journals, returning to a practice he’d begun in his youth.The Weight of the Earth presents transcripts of these tapes, documenting Wojnarowicz’s turbulent attempts to understand his anxieties and passions, and tracking his thoughts as they develop in real time.

In these taped diaries, Wojnarowicz talks about his frustrations with the art world, recounts his dreams, and describes his rage, fear, and confusion about his HIV diagnosis. Primarily spanning the years 1987 and 1989, recorded as Wojnarowicz took solitary road trips around the United States or ruminated in his New York loft, the audio journals are an intimate and affecting record of an artist facing death. By turns despairing, …

1 edition

Subjects

  • Artists, biography
  • New york (n.y.), biography
  • Political activists