Abstract
This paper considers the creative perspective of David Wojnarowicz in the late-1980s, following the death of his friend and mentor Peter Hujar from AIDS, and the artist’s own diagnosis with HIV. I focus on two mixed-media artworks, My Father Was A Sailor, My Father Was The Century and Untitled (Hujar Dead), both of which were first exhibited at the artist’s solo show, ‘In the Shadow of Forward Motion’, in New York City in 1989. Drawing primarily on Lacanian psychoanalysis, I work towards theorising and demonstrating the critical potential of one of Wojnarowicz’s many neologisms, the ‘x-ray of civilization’. How might we understand this critical term — and how can it be deployed, both in the gallery and beyond?
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