Ahead of a major exhibition at The Modern Institute in Glasgow opening this Friday, Olivia Laing curates a selection of David Wojnarowicz’s writings for the Summer/Autumn 2026 issue of Another Man, offering a portrait of the artist in his own words.
Taken from Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration (Canons), David Wojnarowicz, introduced by Olivia Laing
“It’s so simple: the man without the eye against a receding wall, the subtle deterioration of weather, of shading, of images engraved in the flaking walls... So simple, the appearance of night in a room full of strangers, the maze of hallways wandered as in films, the fracturing of bodies from darkness into light, the sounds of plane engines easing into the distance.”
“I found him very sexy because I love difference. An unbearably handsome face bores me unless something beneath its surface is crooked or askew.”
“These are strange and dangerous times. Some of us are born with the cross hairs of a rifle scope printed on our backs or skulls. Sometimes it’s a matter of thought, sometimes activity, and most times it’s colour.”
“So I’m watching this thing move around in my environment, among friends and strangers: something invisible and abstract and scary; some connect-the-dots version of hell, only it’s not so simple as hell... You can’t shut out the sights and sounds of death, the people waking up with the diseases of small birds or mammals; the people whose faces are entirely black with cancer eating healthy salads in the lonely seats of restaurants.”
“A number of months ago I read in the newspaper that there was a Supreme Court ruling which states that homosexuals in America have no constitutional rights against the government’s invasion of their privacy. The paper states that homosexuality is traditionally condemned in America and only people who are heterosexual or married or who have families can expect those constitutional rights. There were no editorials. Nothing. Just flat cold type in the morning paper informing people of this. In most areas of the USA it is possible to murder a man and when one is brought to trial one has only to say that the victim was a queer and that he tried to touch you and the courts will set you free. When I read the newspaper article I felt something stirring in my hands; I felt a sensation like seeing oneself from miles above the earth or like looking at one’s reflection in a mirror through the wrong end of a telescope. Realizing that I have nothing left to lose in my actions I let my hands become weapons, my teeth become weapons, every bone and muscle and fiber and ounce of blood become weapons, and I feel prepared for the rest of my life.”
“I want to throw up because we’re supposed to quietly and politely make home in this killing machine called America and pay taxes to support our own slow murder and I’m amazed we’re not running amok in the streets, and that we can still be capable of gestures of loving after lifetimes of this.”
“Every painting or photograph or film I make, I make with the sense that it might be the last thing I do and so I try to pull everything into the surface of that action. I work quickly now and feel there is no time for bullshit.”
“When I was told that I’d contracted this virus, it didn’t take me long to realise that I’d contracted a diseased society as well.”
“There is something I want to see clearly, something I want to witness in its raw state... I’m trying to lift off the weight of the pre-invented world so I can see what’s underneath it all. I’m hungry and the pre-invented world doesn’t satisfy my hunger.”
“Bottom line, we have to find our own forms of gesture and communication.”
“We in this society have been in this political climate before. It is cyclical, and similar bigots and extremists have reared their conservative/fascist heads before in order to conduct witch hunts.”
“Describing the once indescribable can dismantle the power of taboo.”
Taken from Weight of the Earth: The Tape Journals of David Wojnarowicz (Semiotext(e)/MIT Press), David Wojnarowicz, Lisa Darms (Editor), David O’Neill (Editor), David Velsco (Introduction)
“I cut through time, the same way I cut through borders when I rip up a map.”
“My feeling is that imagination is the key to breaking through pre-invented existence: that in the imagination, we can break the image of borders – we can break through the borders of countries, we can break through existing structures of government, or we can break through whatever systems of control are on our shoulders. In my work, I believe fully in the imagination to do all these things.”
David Wojnarowicz: some day this will all be crumbling ruins takes place at The Modern Institute, 48 Carlton Place, Glasgow, from 5 June to 28 August 2026 as part of Glasgow International Festival 2026.
Olivia Laing will be talking about David Wojnarowicz and The Lonely City at 10 at Union Chapel on 23 June. A special 10th-anniversary hardback edition of The Lonely City by Olivia Laing, featuring a new afterword, will be released on 4 June 2026.
Image supplied by The Modern Institute and P·P·O·W: Copyright the Estate of David Wojnarowicz. Courtesy of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz; P·P·O·W, New York; and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd., Glasgow. Special thanks to Olivia Laing, Isaac Alpert at PPOW, Fales Library, Calum Sutherland and all at The Modern Institute, Honey Webster and Sam Talbot.