Pier 34 NYC 1983-84 slideshow & Portraits of David Wojnarowicz

KW Institute for Contemporary Art is pleased to present the exhibition Photography & Film 1978–1992 that will be the first to solely concentrate on Wojnarowicz’s photographic and filmic work. It will present over 150 works including photographs, test prints, silkscreens, 16mm and super-8 film, and collaborative video works. Afterwards the exhibition will travel to the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver (CA). Curator: Krist Gruijthuijsen

The exhibition includes two looped analogue slideshows, as well as two b/w prints of photographs by Andreas Sterzing. Slideshow one contains 32 portraits of David Wojnarowicz, taken in New York between 1983 and 1989. Slideshow two shows 80+80 slides of the project: "Something Possible Everywhere: Pier 34, NYC 1983-84" Slides are projected side by side using two carousel projectors.

David Wojnarowicz (1954–1992) came into prominence in the East Village art world of the 1980s, actively embracing all media and forging an expansive range of work both fiercely political and highly personal. Although largely self-taught, he worked as an artist and writer to merge a sophisticated combination of found and discarded material with an uncanny understanding of literary influences. First displayed in rough storefront galleries, his work already gained national prominence at the very moment. Diagnosed with HIV in the late 1980s his work became resolutely and fervently political at a time where the AIDS epidemic was cutting down a generation of artists. From the late 1970s until his death in 1992, Wojnarowicz produced a body of work that was as conceptually rigorous as it was stylistically diverse.