FICTION DICTION

"When [he and Peter Hujar] met [in 1980], Wojnarowicz still considered himself primarily a writer, but he was putting together a portfolio of visual work. He told Hujar he was going to throw away his more disturbing drawings. Hujar advised him not to. Based on a doodle that Wojnarowicz left at Hujar’s apartment one night, he believed in Wojnarowicz’s genius, and encouraged him to dedicate himself to visual art. Wojnarowicz never stopped writing—the essay collection he published in 1991, Close to the Knives, is probably his most important achievement—but he did take Hujar’s advice and start to paint."

~ Christine Smallwood, New York Times, September 7, 2018