Récit d’épidémie dans 'In the Shadow of the American Dream' – The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz

Dans son témoignage autobiographique intitulé In the Shadow of the American Dream (1998), l’artiste pluridisciplinaire américain David Wojnarowicz narre son combat contre le virus de l’immunodéficience humaine (VIH) qui l’emporta à l’âge de 37 ans. De quelle façon la narration s’organise-t-elle dans le journal intime de l’auteur ? Par quelles modalités scripturales ce dernier parvient-il à rendre compte d’une expérience épidémique à la fois individuelle et collective ? En mettant en perspective le texte avec d’autres ouvrages contemporains, aussi bien anglophones que francophones, l’auteure de cet article examine premièrement le caractère fragmentaire et discontinu du récit. Puis, elle analyse les choix lexicaux et métaphoriques par lesquels Wojnarowicz parvient non seulement à mettre en mots son expérience de la maladie, mais aussi à rendre visible toute une communauté d’êtres militants qui luttent pour exister et faire valoir leurs droits.

Reimagining the Face of HIV/AIDS

Chapter 5 features a discussion of the queer biopic’s relationship to PWA photography and media representation, looking finally to contemporary media practices to reflect upon the current AIDS media landscape. The queer biopic does not function outside of other modes of photography and video; instead, questions of portraiture are foundational to any understanding of the biopic form. The chapter moves through the history of PWA photography, providing readings of photography by Therese Frare, Nicholas Nixon, David Wojnarowicz, and Nan Goldin. The chapter’s turn to contemporary HIV + multimedia artist Kia LaBeija examines the legacies of black queer performance that emerge in her video and photographic work.

When Young Playwrights Are Kept Awake Because of History: Cultural Memory and Amnesia in Recent American Plays

Borrowing from both a painting and the retrospective exhibition of David Wojnarowicz, History Keeps Me Awake at Night, this paper targets two recent American plays: Annie Baker’s The Flick (2013) and Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance (2018). In both, the playwrights point to the neglect of history, or rather cultural memory, as I will insist on calling it, as one of the ills affecting a “historicidal” society such as that of the United States. An immersion into the present and concurrent obliteration of one’s cultural inheritance results in a populace easily manipulated in the interests of corporate control, and more importantly for the plays under consideration, into unhappiness and disconnection, an erlebnis, in sum, which proves lethal for individuals and the larger groups of which they form part. Both plays further seem to argue that the most troublesome of such a thing is how little consciousness of the problem there is, a surefire indication that induced amnesia is making alarming headway among the younger generations.

Espaço, vídeo e ativismo no trabalho visual de David Wojnarowicz

Este artigo busca compreender como opera uma iniciativa ativista e política no trabalho visual de David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992), identificado como um dos artistas visuais envolvidos com a luta pelo reconhecimento do HIV e assistência à população soropositiva, a partir de uma relação desse trabalho com a materialidade do espaço e a busca por uma espacialidade alternativa para produção e o consumo da arte. Para isso, primeiro, o artigo investiga uma inquietação contra o espaço institucional da arte, considerando uma reincidência histórica dessa reivindicação. Depois, busca-se analisar o trabalho visual — e, principalmente, videográfico — de Wojnarowicz a partir de contextos histórica e geograficamente específicos de ansiedade política e de uma iniciativa de reconfiguração do espaço comum a que estão vinculados.