{"title":"Books by David Wojnarowicz","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781786890276","title":"Close to the Knives","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eI am glad I am alive to witness these things; giving words to this life of sensations is a relief. Smell the flowers while you can.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eClose to the Knives \u003c\/i\u003eis the artist, writer and activist David Wojnarowicz's extraordinary memoir. Filthy, beautiful, and sharp to the point of piercing, it is both an exploration of the world seen through the eyes of an artist, and a moving portrait of a generation living, grieving, and dying through the AIDS crisis. It is a triumphant hymn of resistance, and a dizzying celebration of the joys of seeing and living in the world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205495062706,"sku":"9781786890276","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781786890276_2213aebf-d8c7-4dd6-a52b-227b33941a3b.jpg?v=1786025375"},{"product_id":"9781635900170","title":"The Weight of the Earth","description":"\u003cb\u003eAudio journals that document Wojnarowicz's turbulent attempts to understand his anxieties and passions, and tracking his thoughts as they develop in real time.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn these moments I hate language. I hate what words are like, I hate the idea of putting these preformed gestures on the tip of my tongue, or through my lips, or through the inside of my mouth, forming sounds to approximate something that's like a cyclone, or something that's like a flood, or something that's like a weather system that's out of control, that's dangerous, or alarming.... It just seems like sounds that have been uttered back and forth maybe now over centuries. And it always boils down to the same meaning within those sounds, unless you're more intense uttering them, or you precede them or accompany them with certain forms of violence.\u003cbr\u003e—from \u003ci\u003eThe Weight of the Earth\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eArtist, writer, and activist David Wojnarowicz (1954–1992) was an important figure in the downtown New York art scene. His art was preoccupied with sex, death, violence, and the limitations of language. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, Wojnarowicz began keeping audio journals, returning to a practice he'd begun in his youth.\u003ci\u003eThe Weight of the Earth\u003c\/i\u003e presents transcripts of these tapes, documenting Wojnarowicz's turbulent attempts to understand his anxieties and passions, and tracking his thoughts as they develop in real time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn these taped diaries, Wojnarowicz talks about his frustrations with the art world, recounts his dreams, and describes his rage, fear, and confusion about his HIV diagnosis. Primarily spanning the years 1987 and 1989, recorded as Wojnarowicz took solitary road trips around the United States or ruminated in his New York loft\u003cb\u003e, \u003c\/b\u003ethe audio journals are an intimate and affecting record of an artist facing death. By turns despairing, funny, exalted, and angry, this volume covers a period largely missing from Wojnarowicz's written journals, providing us with an essential new record of a singular American voice.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302647935349,"sku":"9781635900170","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781635900170_943f80f5-86d5-4a1f-a869-bb5e06b9787a.jpg?v=1786023442"},{"product_id":"9781999922313","title":"The Waterfront Journals","description":"From the author of Close to the Knives, a series of fictional monologues that create a visceral and carnivalesque mosaic of life at the fringes of late-80s America. The Waterfront Journals is a collection of monologues, each ventriloquising one of the many people whom Wojnarowicz met on his travels throughout America while he was sleeping rough. We meet these down and outs in unassuming locations - in truck stops, bus stations and parks - and taken together their voices form a poignant chorus that distils the desires, dreams and dangers of those people whose lives confined are to the margins.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56310525034869,"sku":"9781999922313","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781999922313_dc1d0d76-6bb7-46a5-85b8-debcbdaeab7e.jpg?v=1786031933"},{"product_id":"9781643622712","title":"Memories That Smell Like Gasoline","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Wojnarowicz is a spokesman for the unspeakable.\"\u003c\/b\u003e —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eNew York Magazine\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eDavid Wojnarowicz, one of the most provocative artists of his generation, explores memory, violence, and the erotism of public space—all under the specter of AIDS.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere are David Wojnarowicz’s most intimate stories and sketches, from the full spectrum of his life as an artist and AIDS activist. Four sections—\"Into the Drift and Sway,\" \"Doing Time in a Disposable Body,\" \"Spiral,\" and “Memories that Smell like Gasoline”—are made of images and indictments of a precocious adolescence, and his later adventures in the streets of New York. Combining text and image, tenderness and rage, Wojnarowicz’s \u003ci\u003eMemories that Smell like Gasoline\u003c\/i\u003e is a disavowal of the world that wanted him dead, and a radical insistence on life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe new and revised edition features a foreword by Ocean Vuong and a note from the editor, Amy Scholder.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56419978314101,"sku":"9781643622712","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781643622712_36186b56-7d74-4bf1-9bb2-07c9d292eaca.jpg?v=1786024606"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-david-wojnarowicz.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}