David Wojnarowicz

A Fire in My Belly

Super-8 film transferred to video with sound, 13 min 6 s (Film in Progress) and 7 min (Excerpt)

1986-87

Incident:

2010. Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture exhibition, National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.

In 2010, supporters of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights demonstrated outside the National Portrait Gallery in Washington to protest against the artwork. Political pressure, which threatened the Gallery’s budget, forced the removal of the piece.

Biography:

David Wojnarowicz (Red Bank, 1954 - New York, 1992) was an American multidisciplinary artist who, through his work, denounced homophobic. He was a reference in the fight against AIDS. In 1985, he was included in the Whitney Biennial Graffiti Show and, in 2018, he was the subject of a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art.