2008.28, Peter Hujar, "David Wojnarowicz," 1981

This 1981 portrait powerfully captures the alienation and defiance that characterized the life and art of David Wojnarowicz. One in a series of photographs taken by his partner, Peter Hujar, this particular view of Wojnarowicz's face is intensely graphic, making the subject's wary gaze all the more dramatic and his expression even more intense. 

Proof of Wojnarowicz's trust in Hujar, this unflinching view into another person's mind and spirit is typical of Hujar's singular, even unrelenting, focus. Both Hujar and Wojnarowicz died of complications from AIDS, making this work all the more retrospectively powerful in its recording of a central figure from a downtown New York art milieu that has since vanished.

Anna Katherine Brodbeck, ed., TWO X TWO X TWENTY: Two Decades Supporting Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas: Dallas Museum of Art), 2018, 115.

Until 2008: Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, NY

From 2008: Dallas Museum of Art, purchased from above [1]

[1] See check #13431 in Collections Records Object File 2008.28

Apply to objects where number equals 2008.28