As an artist, Voinarovich led the fight against an epidemic that could not be talked about

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

New dangerous diseases have repeatedly thrown down a challenge to mankind - not only to science and medicine, but to the entire society. Issues of morality, compassion and privilege have become particularly acute during the HIV epidemic. In the eighties, HIV-positive people became outcasts, blamed for all their sins and left to their fate. But there was a man who declared war on both disease and prejudice - and art became his weapon.

Artist, writer and public figure David Voinarovich was unlucky from the very beginning. He was born in 1954 and grew up in the sixties, when free morals and Puritanism fought an unequal battle (Puritanism won). His parents divorced, and for a while David and his sister lived with their father. He turned out to be a cruel man, a real monster. The violence experienced in childhood later backfired on David with a violation of the sense of boundaries, a very low sensitivity to pain and discomfort. By the way, Voinarovich owns a performance with mouth sewing, which has been repeated by the actionist Pavlensky these days. In addition, David realized very early that he was attracted to men, and understood how his father would react to this. When David moved to his mother, there was less bullying in his life, but his mother neglected parental responsibilities. In the end, he ended up on the street. To raise funds for food, David, an emaciated and fragile young man, traded a body on the West Side, where the same "outcast" people gathered like him. For him, this activity was also a way to get love, at least a ghost of love, bodily warmth, passion, pleasure … True, most often he received another portion of cruelty.

Since childhood, he loved to draw and at the same time considered himself mediocre. During his school years - Voinarovich did not manage to finish school - he circled photographs, passing off as his drawings, and so he learned to create his own images. As an artist, he started with collages from newspaper and magazine clippings - there was no money for paints. David considered himself primarily a writer, although he worked in many different visual techniques, was engaged in photography, video, graffiti, installations. His first known work is a series of photographs "Arthur Rimbaud in New York", where a man in a poet's mask walks through the streets.

Voinarovich never hid what his youth was like. He saw too much to be silent. All of his art was associated with social outcasts. In the 80s, Voinarovich threw another New York in the face of an American bohemian who admired bright pictures of pop art. And one could say that he just showed an unsightly underside - but he also showed that "the stars are visible from the bottom", that people whom everyone despises have their little joys, have a soul, have the ability to love. Voinarovich's first book, The Coastal Diaries, was full of stories from those who did not want to hear. He was worried about social injustice, he dedicated posters and collages to the inadmissibility of violence, protested against the war and American imperialism.

At twenty-six, he met a man capable of healing his wounds - the famous photographer Peter Khujar. Khujar inspired him, gave him useful advice, guided him … “Everything I did, I did for Peter,” David later said. His scandalous fame has made him a renowned and coveted artist. Galleries began to exhibit his works, Voinarovich was invited to biennials and meetings … And if the 80s became a time of success and happiness for Voinarovich, America was shocked by the HIV epidemic at that time. The first victims were those who were already rejected by society, and this is how the stereotype became entrenched: HIV is a punishment for sins, this does not happen to decent people. Research proceeded slowly. The patients did not receive medicines, not even basic palliative care; some politicians simply suggested that they be destroyed. Voinarovich always ached with his soul for those who remained there, on the streets … but now the disease has taken his beloved person from him.

In 1987, Peter Khujar died of AIDS. David's grief took on the character of an obsession. He filmed the body of Khujar in a hospital ward and dedicated a series of videos to him. Voinarovich lived in his house, slept in his bed and seemed completely distraught, but secretly hatched a plan. His pain and rage took shape. The form of collages, photographs, essays. Now even schoolchildren draw posters on HIV protection, but then a loud voice was needed to break the silence. Voinarovich was one of the first to speak with art about the problem of HIV, and the first to do it so harshly, uncompromisingly and openly.

He criticized politicians and the church, actively participated in rallies and became a prominent, inspiring figure in the ranks of the HIV rights activists called ACTUP. Voinarovich became the leader of this struggle. He wore a jacket that read: "If I die of AIDS, forget the cremation - put my body on the steps of the Ministry of Health."

His series "Postcards from America", where photographs depicting war, destruction and suffering are combined with images of flowers, shows how beautiful the world is today on the brink of destruction.

In 1991, he created his most famous collage, "Once this child" - a judgment on society. A photograph of young David is printed against the background of the text, which tells what sorrow and humiliation this freckled boy will soon face.

A year later, Voinarovich died of AIDS. Voinarovich's ashes were scattered on the lawn near the White House as part of the ACTUP protest action. The disease turned out to be stronger - but the questions raised by Voinarovich, his slogans, his projects inspired many to fight for the rights of HIV-positive people. And the art of David Voinarovich remains scandalous today - in 2010, politicians and the church called on the National Portrait Gallery to remove from the screening his video, where ants crawl on a crucifix. Voinarovich's radical work still hits the mark.