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When I was told that I'd contracted this virus it didn't take me long to realize that Id contracted a diseased society as well.
David Wojnarowicz1
The artist, writer, photographer, performer, filmmaker, and activist David Wojnarowicz died of AIDS in 1992. He was 37 years old. AIDS was the last of a series of traumas that Wojnarowicz experienced over the course of his short life. As a child he was sexually and physically abused; during adolescence he survived periods of homelessness and drug use; and as an adult he repeatedly confronted homophobia and AIDS discrimination, one of the most intense episodes of which included the withdrawal of funding by the National Endowment for the Arts for an exhibition that featured his photography and writing. Perhaps because of his intimacy with both physical and psychic suffering, Wojnarowicz was able to create artwork that was renowned for its uncompromising rage and magnificent tenderness.
Rage and tenderness are both very evident in this image, Untitled (One Day This Kid. . .), one of a pair of pieces created by Wojnarowicz in 1990 as a response to the issue of homophobia. (In the companion work he substitutes an image of a young girl for that of the young boy and revises the text accordingly.) The impact of the piece is achieved through its deceptively simple juxtaposition of a rather unremarkable photograph with text that reads more like a list than a polemic.
We take in the photograph first. The allAmerican, Norman Rockwell-like boy, with his patterned shirt, suspenders, neat haircut, and buck-toothed smile, is delightful. By selecting an image that alludes to "more innocent" times, Wojnarowicz accomplishes the first of a series of appropriations from the discourses of political, cultural, and religious conservatives. Through the text he reveals that this child is the meeting point for a clash of forces as...