David Wojnarowicz

One of David Wojnarowicz's few incursions into photography is a testimony of urban, social and political change in New York in the late 1970s.

In 1978 and 1979, David Wojnarowicz took a series of photographs of a man wearing a paper mask bearing the visage of Arthur Rimbaud, the French poet equally known for his fervid verse and dramatic life. Rimbaud was the instantiation, and perhaps the inventor, of the idea of the young gay hustler of genius.

Presenting a selection of images photographed by Wojnarowicz, this amply illustrated catalogue features an introductory essay by Bessa setting the Arthur Rimbaud in New York series in the context of works that crossover different disciplines (literature, photography, and performance). Nicholas Martin, curator for the arts and humanities at Fales Library, NYU, explores Wojnarowicz's practice in the context of the rise of the punk movement in downtown Manhattan in the late 1970s. Poet and University of Utah literature professor Craig Dworkin, explores Rimbaud's years as a runaway youth in Paris during the years of the Commune, and his acquaintances with the city's bohemia. Author and literature professor Marguerite Van Cook contributes an essay about her experiences with both the London and New York music and art scenes throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Art collector Phillip Aarons offers a personal account of his engagement as a collector of Wojnarowicz's work. Among additional contributions, this volume features an interview with photographer Allen Frame, who produced several performances of Wojnarowicz's monologues in the early 1980s in New York's Lower East Side, Berlin, and Brooklyn.