Sempre que dava um passeio, sentia-se como se se deixasse a si próprio para trás e, entregando-se ao movimento das ruas, reduzido a um olho que vê conseguia escapar à obrigação de pensar, e isto, mais do que qualquer outra coisa, trazia-lhe uma certa paz, um salutar vazio interior. O mundo estava no seu exterior, à sua volta, perante si, e a velocidade com que mudava impossibilitava-o de se prender por muito tempo a uma única coisa. O movimento era a essência, o ato de pôr um pé diante do outro e seguir a errância do seu próprio corpo. Ao caminhar sem destino, todos os lugares se tornavam semelhantes deixando de ter importância o sítio onde se encontrava. Nos seus melhores passeios, conseguia atingir o sentimento de que não estava em sítio algum. E isto, afinal, era tudo o que pedia as coisas: não estar em sítio algum.
Paul Auster – Cidade de Vidro
photo: Arthur Rimbaud in New York, David Wojnarowicz
I wanted to wake up and find that I was five years old and my parents and neighbors would say, “My, my, what an imagination.” I wanted to be physically erased and start over again. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be there. I guess I wanted to be nowhere, I wanted to listen to my brain talk inside of nothingness. I wanted to be untouchable and have no need…
One of David Wojnarowicz’s best-known pieces, Untitled (One Day This Kid...) (1990) is a photo-text collage with a portrait of the artist as an innocent child. Surrounding this anodyne, yearbook-style image is a field of text that gathers like a storm cloud, narrating a traumatic future in which this child will be persecuted—by the government, by the church, by society at large—for his sexuality. The repetition of the phrase “one day” gives the work a prophetic and propulsive cadence; it simmers with the visceral anger that defined so much of Wojnarowicz’s work as an artist and impassioned activist.
In 1991, the Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University, in Canton, New York, staged the exhibition From Desire... A Queer Diary, curated by Nan Goldin. The show, which was part of a festival of gay and lesbian art, included works by David Armstrong, Greer Lankton, Zoe Leonard, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mark Morrisroe, and Wojnarowicz, among numerous others. Arriving amid the ’8os-era culture wars,
From Desire sparked controversy on campus. School fraternities reportedly attempted to prevent students from seeing the show, bullying those who attended and fulfilling the prediction of toxic intolerance that Wojnarowicz conjures in One Day This Kid.
Despite being autobiographical, Wojnarowicz’s collage is inclusive, inviting identification by others marked by homophobia or trauma, or those who feel invisible in a moment of stifling social conservatism. For the From Desire invitation, Wojnarowicz adapted One Day This Kid, changing the pronouns from he to she, and swapping in a young Nan Goldin in place of himself. “This card was an invitation to a queer art show that David helped me curate in 1991, another of our censored shows! It has pride of place in my home,” Goldin says. “I’m honored that David asked me to represent the girl. We were ugly, bucktoothed kids. But look what a beauty he grew into.”
from Object Lessons by The Editors, Aperture Magazine, Summer 2020
as a queer person #FellowTravelers already means a lot, but THIS episode8-finale ep-ending scene? this scene means absolutely the world, it's everything, for all of us.🌈
can't watch it without sobbing.
(please do check the WHOLE post, and watch How to Survive a Plague 2012, it's a MUST watch (+everything you spot in this post)
+important reading about AIDS/HIV: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/139102124?shelf=about-aids-hiv
+ a special episode where we hear(literally) from listeners of the show who were lovers, nurses, relatives, students, and friends of people who died from AIDS. (have tissues nearby):https://open.spotify.com/episode/4rTjExVqMVoEtCVPISSW5t?si=Dx09EVStQAiNHoTYvwZvFw & https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-a-bit-fruity-with-matt-ber-117844074/episode/stories-from-the-aids-crisis-191687576/
+ also queer history/facts from RWRB(Alex engaging with queer history)(thank you SO. MUCH. CASEY MCQUISTON!!)-GREAT POST here on tumblr!!-many links here, lots of information! (Waterloo Vase, Stonewall, SCOTUS decision 2015, Walt Whitman, Laws of Illinois 1961, The White Nights Riots, Paris Is Burning, THAT David Wojnarowicz photo 'If I Die Of AIDS-Forget Burial-Just Drop My Body On The Steps Of The F.D.A' https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/757305651356729344?source=share (I encourage you to research more about David!!) , Thisbe & Pyramus, The V & A, James I & George Villiers and MORE!!) https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/757308307835895808?source=share (Learning about things referenced in Red, White & Royal Blue, thank you @ elipheleh)
BOOKS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BISEXUAL HISTORY & ACTIVISM:https://www.tumblr.com/ruimtetijd/686000390089621504/list-of-books-about-bi-history-and-activism-from &https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/139102124?shelf=bi-bisexual-characters-done-well &https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q--nIkJu0OS0BgiyZmdKVwOVg1G90SFzWijNDWFTt58/edit#heading=h.wqkaxpi7o5je
+Thank You Howard Ashman, I love you forever, so many of us are here and sane because of Your legacy and impact.(DISNEY-QUEER SONGS-MUSIC-POST):https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/753605532240216064/howard-ashman-i-love-you-forever-so-many-of-us?source=share &https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/754612616112046080?source=share
about Howard, about AIDS, listen to the song 'Sheridan Square' if you haven't yet, Howard wrote it with Alan Menken. And yes, it makes me sob every single time i hear it: .https://open.spotify.com/track/5p61V1pNfa4qoZIxm6apex?si=a32ca6011ab44782 &https://youtu.be/-4fr8JGkeO4 &https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97-NzeIkkJI&list=OLAK5uy_l7U2qdUmOPfgWwmsCA0cc_-KDxwjMj5zM +Learn more :https://stanforddaily.com/2019/06/05/sheridan-square/ & please research more about Howard, there's a lot of Him in THIS IMPORTANT post because we, queer people, owe him so so much.
Peter Hujar, Forbidden Fruit (David Wojnarowicz Eating an Apple in an Issey Miyake shirt), from the postcard set The Twelve Perfect Christmas Gifts from Dianne B, 1983
I wanted to be physically erased and start over again. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be there. I guess I wanted to be nowhere, I wanted to listen to my brain talk inside of nothingness. I wanted to be untouchable and have no need.