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Lot Essay
"We all affect each other, especially by being open enough to make each other feel less alienated in terms of what the experience of living in this country is. We all have that possibility or embody that possibility of having profound effects on each other." - David Wojnarowicz
Visually jarring and hauntingly poignant, David Wojnarowicz’s The Boys Go Off to War is an enthralling example of the artist’s fiercely outspoken nature and his ability to express deep-rooted social conflicts through his compelling creations. A lifelong activist and a prominent member of the 1980s East Village art scene, Wojnarowicz produced a body of sharply critical works throughout his tragically short career. Though his oeuvre reflects the turbulent socio-political climate of the space and time he occupied, his works remain deeply resonant in any moment rife with injustice.
Created in 1983, The Boys Go Off to War can be transformed through many different connotations. The previous decades in the United States had seen several brutal wars waged at the expense of the American people, who were now left to pick up the remnants of their lives as they attempted to return to normalcy. Young men with the world at their feet had suddenly been stripped of their autonomy, becoming mere bodies for American military consumption, returning home hollowed shells of their former selves. Wojnarowicz’s signature use of map collage feels especially poignant in this narrative as the two boys in the left composition are filled with torn pieces of the United States, content in their home and identity, while the flayed animal carcasses on the right hang above torn pieces of maps from the Eastern Hemisphere, the word “world” prominently turned upside-down.
Not only a time of physical war, however, the early 1980s brought the onset of the horrific AIDS epidemic that would tear through the country, eventually taking the life of Wojnarowicz himself. An incredibly stigmatized disease due to its prevalence in the queer community, HIV/AIDS was systematically ignored by the United States government, its major health organizations, and President Ronald Reagan, who would not even acknowledge the virus publicly until 1985, after thousands had already died. For Wojnarowicz and many of his close companions it must have felt as if their community was becoming nothing but an ever-growing pile of corpses, pleading for the nation’s attention and met with only silence and distain. The two young men of The Boys Go Off to War, naked from the waist up, one with his arm around the other, may also be victims of this new war, waged against the cruel and unrelenting epidemic of HIV/AIDS. The boys, once again, sent off to fight an enemy they did not ask for, by a government that would not save them.
An artist of incredible conviction with a wealth of stories to tell, David Wojnarowicz consistently used his work to elevate the voices of the queer community and the marginalized groups of 1980s New York. His strikingly moving portfolio feels at once specific to its moment in time and timeless in its quest to rectify injustices it seems the world can never be rid of. Though his career was cut too short by the very epidemic he strived to bring awareness to, the works that remain emulate the artist’s fervent and urgent approach to story telling in a moment where it seemed no one was listening. In the words of the artist, “We all affect each other, especially by being open enough to make each other feel less alienated in terms of what the experience of living in this country is. We all have that possibility or embody that possibility of having profound effects on each other.” (D. Wojnarowicz, quoted in D. Breslin and D. Kiehl, David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night, exh. cat. Whitney Muse4um of American Art, New York, 2018, pg. 10).
Visually jarring and hauntingly poignant, David Wojnarowicz’s The Boys Go Off to War is an enthralling example of the artist’s fiercely outspoken nature and his ability to express deep-rooted social conflicts through his compelling creations. A lifelong activist and a prominent member of the 1980s East Village art scene, Wojnarowicz produced a body of sharply critical works throughout his tragically short career. Though his oeuvre reflects the turbulent socio-political climate of the space and time he occupied, his works remain deeply resonant in any moment rife with injustice.
Created in 1983, The Boys Go Off to War can be transformed through many different connotations. The previous decades in the United States had seen several brutal wars waged at the expense of the American people, who were now left to pick up the remnants of their lives as they attempted to return to normalcy. Young men with the world at their feet had suddenly been stripped of their autonomy, becoming mere bodies for American military consumption, returning home hollowed shells of their former selves. Wojnarowicz’s signature use of map collage feels especially poignant in this narrative as the two boys in the left composition are filled with torn pieces of the United States, content in their home and identity, while the flayed animal carcasses on the right hang above torn pieces of maps from the Eastern Hemisphere, the word “world” prominently turned upside-down.
Not only a time of physical war, however, the early 1980s brought the onset of the horrific AIDS epidemic that would tear through the country, eventually taking the life of Wojnarowicz himself. An incredibly stigmatized disease due to its prevalence in the queer community, HIV/AIDS was systematically ignored by the United States government, its major health organizations, and President Ronald Reagan, who would not even acknowledge the virus publicly until 1985, after thousands had already died. For Wojnarowicz and many of his close companions it must have felt as if their community was becoming nothing but an ever-growing pile of corpses, pleading for the nation’s attention and met with only silence and distain. The two young men of The Boys Go Off to War, naked from the waist up, one with his arm around the other, may also be victims of this new war, waged against the cruel and unrelenting epidemic of HIV/AIDS. The boys, once again, sent off to fight an enemy they did not ask for, by a government that would not save them.
An artist of incredible conviction with a wealth of stories to tell, David Wojnarowicz consistently used his work to elevate the voices of the queer community and the marginalized groups of 1980s New York. His strikingly moving portfolio feels at once specific to its moment in time and timeless in its quest to rectify injustices it seems the world can never be rid of. Though his career was cut too short by the very epidemic he strived to bring awareness to, the works that remain emulate the artist’s fervent and urgent approach to story telling in a moment where it seemed no one was listening. In the words of the artist, “We all affect each other, especially by being open enough to make each other feel less alienated in terms of what the experience of living in this country is. We all have that possibility or embody that possibility of having profound effects on each other.” (D. Wojnarowicz, quoted in D. Breslin and D. Kiehl, David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night, exh. cat. Whitney Muse4um of American Art, New York, 2018, pg. 10).