University of Cincinnati

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:__June 5, 2007_______ I, Jennifer Lynn Hardin_______________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Masters of Arts in: Art History It is entitled: “ A Season in Hell”: David Wojnarowicz’s Rimbaud in New York Series (1978-79) This work and its defense approved by: Chair: Dr.Kimberly Paice______________ Dr. Michael Carrasco___________ Dr. Mikiko Hirayama____________ _______________________________ _______________________________ “A Season in Hell”: David Wojnarowicz’s Rimbaud In New York Series (1978-79) A thesis submitted to the Art History Faculty of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning University of Cincinnati In candidacy for the degree of Masters of Arts in Art History Jennifer Hardin June 2007 Advisor: Dr. Kimberly Paice Abstract David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) was an interdisciplinary artist who rejected traditional scholarship and was suspicious of institutions. Wojnarowicz’s Arthur Rimbaud in New York series (1978-79) is his earliest complete body of work. In the series a friend wears the visage of the French symbolist poet. My discussion of the photographs involves how they convey Wojnarowicz’s notion of the city. In chapter one I discuss Rimbaud’s conception of the modern city and how Wojnarowicz evokes the figure of the flâneur in establishing a link with nineteenth century Paris. In the final chapters I address the issue of the control of the city and an individual’s right to the city. In chapter two I draw a connection between the renovations of Paris by Baron George Eugène Haussman and the gentrification Wojnarowicz witnessed of the Lower East side. Finally, in chapter three I analyze the role that graffiti plays in the series. Acknowledgments I would like to extend my gratitude to the members of the Art History faculty of the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning at the University of Cincinnati whom I have had the pleasure of working with. I also must thank the Library staff that aided me in procuring research materials and taught me how to make better use of the Library. I am indebted to my committee members, most importantly Dr. Kimberly Paice my thesis advisor who always made herself available to me despite her heavy work load. She tirelessly edited my chapters and provided encouragement. I want to thank Dr. Michael Carrasco who rearranged his schedule to serve on my committee and Dr. Mikiko Hirayama who filled in at the last minute despite an already busy schedule. I am eternally grateful for their insightful and constructive criticism. Table of Contents Introduction:...................................................1 Chapter 1: Identity, Desire, and Decay in David Wojnarowicz’s Arthur Rimbaud in New York series 1978-79.......................9 Chapter 2: The Right to the City...............................19 Chapter 3: Commodification of Subcultural Production...........45 Conclusion.....................................................50 Bibliography...................................................55 Illustrations..................................................59 List of Illustrations 1. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Cooney Island), ca. 1978-79. From a series of twenty-four gelatin-silver prints, 10x8” each. Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W., New York. 2. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Meat Packing District), ca.1978-79. 3. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Times Square), ca. 1978-79. 4. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Western Highway), ca. 1978-79 5. Rosa Von Praunheim in Collaboration with Phil Zwickler. Still from Silence= Death, 1990. Video Cassette, 60 min. 6. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Peep Show), ca. 1978-79 7. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Sex Pier), ca. 1978- 79. 8. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Photo Strip), ca. 1978-79. 9. Constant Nieuwenhuys, New Babylon, ca. 1957-1974. 10. Guy Debord, The Naked City, 1957. 11. Madeleine de Scudéry, La Carte de Tendre, ca. 1654. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Princeton University Library. 12. David Wojnarowicz, Untitled [One day this kid…], ca.1990. Gelatin- silver print, 30x40”. Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W., New York, New York. 13. David Wojnarowicz, Flyer for 3 Teens Kill 4, ca. 1982. 14. David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar Dreaming/ Yukio Mishima: St. Sebastian, ca. 1982. Acrylic and spray paint on masonite, 48x48”. 15. David Wojnarowicz, Untitled [Trash Can Lids], ca. 1982-83. Spray paint on trash can lids, 18” diameter each. Collections of Antonia Smith Robinson, New York: Nemo Labrizzi, New York; and Jean Foos and Dirk Rowntree, New York 16. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Hudson River Piers), ca. 1978-79 17. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Mural), ca. 1978- 79. 18. David Wojnarowicz with the Pterodactyl pier painting, ca. 1983. Photo: Marion Scemarna. 19. David Wojnarowicz, Untitled [Sirloin Steaks], ca. 1983. Acrylic on poster, 47”x32 ½”. Collection of Hal Bramm, New York. 20. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Subway Flatbush Ave), ca. 1978-79. 21. David Wojnarowicz, Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Duchamp), ca. 1978- 79. 22. David Wojnarowicz, Crash: The Birth of Language/ The Invention of Lies, ca. 1986. Acrylic on masonite, 72x96”. Collection of Adam Clayton, Dublin. 23. David Wojnarowicz, What is This Little Guy’s Job in the World, 1990. Gelatin-silver print, 13 1/2x19” The Inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live everyday, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space. -Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities Introduction David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) could be considered the archetypal bohemian artist of the 1970s. He settled in New York’s East Village in the late 1970s when the area was predominately slums and vacant lots, before it emerged as a trendy “art scene.” He came to be closely associated with the underground, a community where the criminal world collided with the art world. Wojnarowicz questioned the function of social institutions and traditional historical narratives, and said, “History is made and preserved by and for particular classes of people. A camera in some hands can preserve an alternative history.” 1 Wojnarowicz never claimed that he was a photographer. He said, “I don’t know how to operate a camera on anything other than automatic.”2 However, he became a photographer. My thesis concerns his earliest complete body of work, Arthur Rimbaud in New York, 1978-79, a series of twenty-four black and white photographs in which a friend of the artist wears a mask with the visage of French Poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). My study will be the first in-depth analysis of the Rimbaud in New York series. It will also establish a connection between Wojnarowicz’s works, his life and writings, and his association with the city. The image that Wojnarowicz used to make the mask was borrowed from a photograph by Parisian photographer Étienne Carjat (1828-1906) 1Lucy R. Lippard et al. David Wojnarowicz: Brush Fires in the Social Landscape (New York, NY: Aperture Foundation Inc., 1994), 9. 2 Lucy R. Lippard et al.,1994, 16. 1 taken in December 1871. Wojnarowicz photographed the masked Rimbaud figure in various public and semi-private locations around New York City. The individual images merge together to form a larger narrative about the nature of the city. The mask not only contributes to the layering aesthetic in the photographs but it also serves to flatten the space, thus evoking the idea of film stills depicting a solitary individual drifting through the city. The Rimbaud figure does not interact with the other individuals within the photographs, and he appears strikingly desolate within the urban setting. The photographs serve as a metaphor for urban decay. There is a photograph of the masked Rimbaud figure that documents the disintegration of the Hudson River Piers and one of Rimbaud riding a graffiti- marked subway car bound for Flatbush Avenue. Photographs from the series show the Rimbaud figure engaging in illegal activities: Rimbaud as a hustler in Times Square, Rimbaud shooting-up in a dilapidated warehouse, or Rimbaud engaging in graffiti. The pictures reflect the feeling of alienation that one associates with living in the city. Wojnarowicz felt an affinity with the French poet Rimbaud because he also lived on the street at one point in his life. Like Wojnarowicz, Rimbaud has also been described as an outlaw. This is only one identity that informs the myth that surrounds Rimbaud. He is the criminal who reportedly stabbed Carjat and seduced a married Paul Verlaine, he is a drug addict, a visionary tortured by illness, and an artist who abandoned writing at the age of twenty and spent his final days in Abyssenia; all of these identifications appealed to Wojnarowicz’s sensibility. His photographs reflect how Wojnarowicz 2 conceptualized the city. They evoke the underground, the criminal, and the ruins of the city as seen through the eyes of the solitary figure. Wojnarowicz received no formal art training beyond high school. He dropped out of school at age sixteen. His Rimbaud in New York series is therefore, based mostly on his experience of living on the street in New York during his teen years. His knowledge of art, however, comes from his extensive self-study of the works of writers Jean Gênet (1910-1986) and William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), and artists with whom he associated in the East Village.

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