Ce que le sida m'a fait: Art et activisme à la fin du XXe siècle
Elisabeth Lebovici
Published by JRP Ringier, Geneva & Fondation Antoine de Galbert, Paris, 2017, 360 pages (b/w ill.), 14.5 × 22.5 cm, French
Price: €20

A both intimate and political account of the links between artistic practices and activism during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s in France and the United States—featuring monographic texts, interviews, and thematic essays.

This essay, written in the first person, is built around a series of monographic texts, interviews, and thematic essays, which constitutes an elective cosmology of a period of artistic and activist creativity in both France and the United States. Historian and art critic Elisabeth Lebovici discusses a variety of artists, protest organizations, artworks, and direct actions: ACT UP, “phone trees”, Richard Baquié, Gregg Bordowitz, Alain Buffard, Douglas Crimp, “political burials”, General Idea, Nan Goldin, Félix González-Torres, Gran Fury, L’Hiver de l’amour, Roni Horn, G. B. Jones, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Zoe Leonard, Mark Morrisroe, William Ollander, “The Patchwork of Names”, The Real Estate Show, Lionel Soukaz, Philippe Thomas, Georges Tony Stoll, Paul Vecchiali, David Wojnarowicz, Dana Wyse, zaps…

Illustrated with numerous archives and ephemera that emphasize the importance of graphic works in the fight against AIDS, Ce que le sida m’a fait (What AIDS has done to me) is a necessary work to understand the “AIDS years”.

#2017 #actup #davidwojnarowicz #douglascrimp #elisabethlebovici #felixgonzaleztorres #gbjones #generalidea #granfury #markmorrisroe #nangoldin #philippethomas #tonyfeher #williamollander #zoeleonard
A Slow Boat To China
David Wojnarowicz, Marion Scemama
Published by Is—Land Édition, Aubervilliers, 2021, 156 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 16 × 22 cm, English / French
Price: €28 (Out of stock)

This publication brings together photographs taken by Marion Scemama during a trip through the American desert with David Wojnarowicz, shortly before his death. It features documents from Scemama’s personal archives and notes from Wojnarowicz’s diary, along with texts by Thibault Boulvain and Elisabeth Lebovici.

#2021 #davidwojnarowicz #elisabethlebovici #marionscemama
In the Shadow of Forward Motion
David Wojnarowicz
Published by Primary Information, New York, 2020, 54 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 21.5 × 28 cm, English
Price: €18 (Temporarily out of stock)

David Wojnarowicz’s In the Shadow of Forward Motion was originally published in 1989 as a limited-run zine/catalog to accompany an exhibition by the artist at P.P.O.W gallery.

Despite its meager print run of just 50 copies, the publication has garnered a legendary status. In it we find Wojnarowicz’s writing and visual art—two mediums for which the artist is renowned—sitting side by side for the first time, playing off each other in equal measure. Wojnarowicz uses the fractured experience of his day-to-day life (including dreams, which he recorded fastidiously) to expose these technologies as weapons of class, cultural, and racial oppression.

The artist’s experience living with HIV is a constant subject of the work, used to shed light on the political and social structures perpetuating discrimination against not only himself, but against women and people of colour, who faced additional barriers in their efforts to receive treatment for the illness.

#2020 #davidwojnarowicz #primaryinformation