by the long gone David Wojnarowicz
"You can never depend on mass media to reflect us or our needs or our states of mind"
Wojarowicz died in 1992, but he has been back in the media a lot these days since, even after death, his work continues to irk the meddlesome mental health deprived contingent of Catholics Without A Life, which when irked, appeal to the mentally deficient wing of the congress, whom they have in their pockets, "to do something". At which point, The Mentally Deficient Wing of the Congress always acts in knee-jerk fashion in the
direction of censorship. When it comes to works by gay men who believe in god and have, in my view, "true religion", this happens over and over and over again. And when this happens, the art in question gets way more play than it would have otherwise. In this instance,
museums all over the country have gotten on the bandwagon and dusted off their Wojnarowicz's for display...
I read the above quote this morning in the February issue of Art in America. It spoke to me and I decided to transcribe it here. I then went in search of an image of Wojnarowicz to include in what has turned out to be one more rant. I chose the picture at the top because even in this media and image saturated world we live in and in which pictures rarely affect me very much anymore, this one is still horrific. But this picture is not how I first came into contact with Wojnarowicz's work, I did so through his amazing painted work. ... I guess the fight goes on.
I was very sad to read the same article - at some point someone in government has to realize that government sponsorship does not equal government censorship. Art should be a COMPLETELY free expression. I have seen the film that was censored - it is visceral, compelling, and poignant. It is amazing that the church is so up in arms over this, and truly sad that government still dances as they pull the strings.
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