Today is World AIDS Day.
In 1989 the National Endowment for the Arts canceled a grant for an exhibition at Artists Space of artists responding to the AIDS crisis. Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing was organized by Nan Goldin, and the catalogue contained essays by Goldin, Linda Yablonsky, Cookie Mueller, and David Wojnarowicz. The Wojnarowicz essay’s political, non-artistic content, was the initial stated reason for the cancellation of the grant.
Artists Space has an extensive archive of the show, including the entire catalogue, and reporting and documentation of the NEA censorship scandal that engulfed it. David Wojnarowicz’s published statement about the grant cancellation is read here by a computer-generated voice.
Download Better Read #042: Wojnarowicz Witnesses, 20251201 [6:41 mp3, 6mb]
Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing, Nov. 1989-Jan. 1990 [artistsspace.org]