True to his self-taught background, David Wojnarowicz challenged the boundaries between languages, media, and actions, and escaped one-dimensional definitions: he was a painter, musician, photographer, writer, Super 8 filmmaker, and a decisive figure in the vibrant social and cultural environment of New York's East Village in the 1980s. From his visceral work stands out his collaborative spirit – in fluid communion with others – but also his rebellious nature. A member of the ACT UP collective, Wojnarowicz was an activist deeply involved with the identity politics of homosexuals before and during the AIDS epidemic, a disease that deprived him of friends and loves and ultimately took him in 1992, at the age of 37.
This book reveals the backstage of the settings that are the protagonists of his most famous works, and the constant record of his body is present, which sharpens when he receives his positive HIV diagnosis. He is aware of having contracted a virus that also embodies the worst of a sick society; one that increasingly marginalizes and excludes dissidents and abandons them to their fate. In the shadow of the American dream, it displays the private record of a sensitive and committed Wojnarowicz, overwhelmed by the demands of survival, pursuing pleasure and freedom even when there is no more light at the end of the tunnel.
