Time: Thursday, January 6, 2011 | 6:00 pm
Location: Catalyst Gallery

Catalyst has joined the nationwide protest over the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s 20-minute film A Fire in My Belly (1986-87) from the “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture” exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery on December 1, 2010. Catholic Leader president Bill Donahue and some members of congress including Speaker of the House John Boehner assailed the video as “an outrageous use of taxpayer money and an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season.” As a reaction against the death of his lover due to AIDS and his own diagnosis as HIV positive, Wojnarowicz intended the video to serve as a symbolic representation of the unjust sufferings gay AIDS victims had to endure during the time. Due to misconceived interpretations of the piece that were enacted upon by the Catholic League and certain members of Congress, the video was wrongfully removed. One scene within the film of ants crawling over a crucified Jesus, has been misperceived as hate speech against Christians. All the circumstances behind the video epitomizes the constant struggle between free expression within the arts and its censorship from outside contributors.

David Wojnarowicz was born in Red Bank, New Jersey and dropped out of high school by the age of sixteen soon after acknowledging his homosexuality. He had his first solo exhibitions in New York in the 1980s. In 1985, he presented at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and was invited to participate in the Whitney Biennial in 1987 and 1991. Wojnarowicz died of AIDS in 1992, at the age of 37. He is the author of five books. His artwork is in numerous private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

His other works include: Untitled (One Day This Kid…); Untitled (Buffalo); Water; Birth of Language II; Untitled (Shark), Untitled (Peter Hujar); Tuna; Peter Hujar Dreaming/Yukio Mishima: St. Sebastian; Delta Towels; True Myth (Domino Sugar); Something From Sleep II; Untitled (Face in Dirt); and I Feel a Vague Nausea among others.

Make, Read, and Look at Art. Repeat.

Summer

Make Online Portfolio!

• READ
• Watch FILMS
• Go to as many shows as possible (always carry notebook)
• Take summer technical class (photo, woodshop, electronics)
• Figure out what faculty you want to work with (studio art website)
• Introspection: why make art?

Books

3 main categories: MEDIUM STUDIES-PHILOSOPHY-HISTORY

• Seven Days in the Art World (Sarah Thornton)
• Between The Eyes (David Levi Strauss)
• Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord)
• On Photography (Susan Sontag)
• Illuminations (Walter Benjamin)
• Mythologies (Roland Barthes)
• The Logic of Sensation (Deluze)
• The Future of the Image (Ranciere)
• How we Became Posthuman (KN Hayles)
• Teaching to Transgress (Bell Hooks)
• Peddagogy of the Oppressed ( Paulo Freire)
• The Body in Contemporary Art (Sally O’Reilly)
• Performance Art (Roselee Goldberg)
• Art And Electronic Media (Edward Shanken)
• Introducing Semiotics (Paul Cobley, Litza Jansz)

Movies

Watch to understand

• Ways of seeing (John Berger: youtube)
• 2001 space odyssey
• Vertigo
• Psycho
• Soylent Green
• 8 ½
• Naked Lunch
• Aliens
• Seven Samarai
• Apocalypse now

Resources

Art Journals and Magazines

• Artforum http://artforum.com/
• Frieze http://www.frieze.com/
• Art in America http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/
• Flash Art http://www.flashartonline.com/
• Art Asia Pacific http://www.aapmag.com/
• Bidoun http://bidoun.com/bdn/
• Art Papers http://artpapers.org/
• CAA Art Journal http://www.collegeart.org/artjournal/
• October http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/octo?cookieSet=1
• Grey Room http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/grey
• New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/
• Cabinet http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/

LA/SoCal Based Journals

• Coagula http://www.coagula.net/
• X-TRA http://www.x-traonline.org/

Online Resources

• Major Photographers http://www.zeroland.co.nz/photographers.html
• LA Gallery & Museum Guide http://artscenecal.com/
• Theartnewspaper.com
• e-flux.com
• apexart.org

Time: May 14, 2010 | 6:30 PM
Location: ART 165

A disturbing portrayal of teenage life, AIDS, and the Kids of New York City. Controversial in its content, the film exposes the grim reality of a group of skate-boarders in the space of 24 hours. Primarily the story consists of Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick) a 17 year old slacker whose mission is to de-flower as many young girls as possible, whilst unprotected. Things turn bad when an old flame finds out she has tested positive for HIV and the only person she has had sex with is Telly. She chases through New York to find him but is too late as he has already de-flowered yet another innocent pre-teen. Written by Dan Adamson <dan@clanjade.freeserve.co.uk>