Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. The artist David Wojnarowicz was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. He spent most of his life in New York, often living on the street, crashing with his friends. It was a short life. He only lived to be 37 years old after dying of AIDS-related complications in 1992. It was an impactful life filled with work across many mediums in his paintings, writings, films, music, and his photography. Some of those photographs are now on display at the Leslie-Lohman Gallery.

The exhibition David Wojnarowicz: Arthur Rimbaud in New York features photographs taken between 1978 and 1979, featuring his friends wearing a mask of the 19th-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud in diners, at warehouses, and other scenes around New York. Joining me now to talk about the exhibition and an accompanying hardcover book is curator Antonio Sergio Bessa. Thank you. It's so nice to see you again.

Antonio Sergio Bessa: It's a pleasure to be here.

Alison Stewart: Photography was one of the many mediums that David Wojnarowicz used. He used paintings, performance art, music, sculpture. They discovered a mural this year of his work in Kentucky. Where do you see his photography fitting into the full oeuvre of his work?

Antonio Sergio Bessa: That's a great question, because as you know, he was a very good friend of Peter Hujar, who was the quintessential photographer of the '70s, '80s in New York. A lot of people think that he might have been coached by Peter. Actually, the whole Rimbaud series is from before he met Peter. There is also, and in the exhibition we included two examples of that, some photographs that he took in France, previous to the work about Rimbaud, and already shows his chops as a photographer.

Back to your question, what photography represents in his work. In this particular case of the Rimbaud series, he represents a bridge that takes him from his writing work into the visual arts.

Alison Stewart: When you see his photography, what stands out to you?

Antonio Sergio Bessa: Well, I think he had an eye for the forgotten, for the underdog. I am very, very fond of the two photographs that he did in France and their own view at the museum right now, because he was in France visiting his sister, who had married, I assume he was a Frenchman and moved to France. In '78, he went to visit her, and he just did these photographs. The photographs are of street kids sleeping on the sidewalk. They are heartbreaking because, in a sense, he's looking at the other, but he's also looking at himself because he himself was a street kid.

I think the photographs, also, the Rimbaud series, it's all about sites of New York that mainstream New Yorkers wouldn't go to. I think he documented all that. In a joking way, I could say that it's as if he brought Rimbaud to the site of one of those 1970s films that showed New York in a very gritty way.

Alison Stewart: How did his work compare to his peers, his other photographers who were peers?

Antonio Sergio Bessa: I don't think, at that time, when he did those series, he was competing to become a photographer. He just had as a practice, and I think, in a sense, was a way for him to document, to memorialize his life. I don't think he was in competition with anyone else. Having said that, researching for this exhibition, I realized that he was very fond of photographers who are like Robert Frank, for example, who did that amazing series, The Americans.

I think photographers like Frank, or Danny Lyon, for example, he had several books by Danny Lyon. I think he was interested in photographers who kind of stepped away from the glamour, from the mainstream, and wanted to show a part of the American society that a lot of people are not used to see.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking to Antonio Sergio Bessa, curator of a new exhibition featuring the work of artist David Wojnarowicz at the Leslie-Lohman Gallery through January. It's also accompanied by a hardcover book of the same name. When did Wojnarowicz become interested in the work of Arthur Rimbaud?

Antonio Sergio Bessa: We assume that it was in the early '70s. In our book, there is a beautiful essay by Nicholas Martin, who is a curator at Fayol's library. When we begin to talk about this project, because I wanted to collaborate with Fayol's archives, they hold all the papers of David's at Fayol's. I immediately invited Nicholas to think about an essay for the book, and Nicholas said, "Oh, that's great, because I want to look at the beginning of punk in New York and the fascination that punk musicians like people like Patti Smith.

Alison Stewart: Oh, like punk rockers like Patti Smith.

Antonio Sergio Bessa: Yes. All those rock stars, they were fascinated with Rimbaud. Some of them actually changed their names or named their bands after some angle of Rimbaud. Rimbaud was currency in the '70s. I think it had been forgotten for a long, long time. David's copy of Illuminations is on view at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, and I think that edition came out from New Directions in the early '50s. I think David might have gotten a used book sale or something like that. His copy is really beaten up. I think it's in the context of New York in the '70s, of the emerging punk era. He looked for a model, and Rimbaud has been a model for this generation for quite some time.

Alison Stewart: David was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. He spent his whole life in New York. He lived in the streets. He lived in halfway houses at certain points. What did he understand about New York City, and where do we see it in his work?

Antonio Sergio Bessa: Well, you see a lot in the Rimbaud series, but I think David's work was more ambitious than that. I think he wanted to be an American voice. In my essay for the catalog, I begin considering this first literary work that he published as a book, which is called Voices from a Distance or in the Distance. It's a series of monologues that he collected on the road. He crossed country several times, and during these trips, and he was very young, he was in his early 20s, he would sit in a cafe, in a diner, talk to people, and he would listen to their stories. Then after that, he would go back to his hotel room and he would transcribe everything from memory.

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow.

Antonio Sergio Bessa: This book, I think, is a fascinating piece of literature that I think a lot of people haven't spent their time with it, because it shows what a lot of Americans were going through during that time, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the rising drug epidemics. He wanted to be an American voice, an American author.

Alison Stewart: He took it in, too. He was a conduit for the people telling the stories to him.

Antonio Sergio Bessa: Absolutely. I find this a very interesting kind of link with Rimbaud, because Rimbaud famously said, "I is the other. Je est un autre." I think it's this idea that my subjectivity is made up from everyone around me. He had this really generous kind of view of life. I think even though his life was so hard, he was always willing to share and to be there. I think also in this regard, I think it's very interesting what I found in his library at Fayol's. He was very influenced by the beat writers, people like Jack Kerouac and stuff like that. You see, it's kind of interesting that he's writing in the '70s, but he's thinking of writers from the '50s or '60s.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's interesting.

Antonio Sergio Bessa: Yes.

Alison Stewart: He visited his sister in France. Was that a transformative trip for him?

Antonio Sergio Bessa: I think so, yes, in many ways. I cannot say that that's when he had the idea to create the Rimbaud series. Maybe he was already working on that previous to going to France. There is an image that it's someone wearing the mask in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] The mask. Let's talk about the mask for just a moment. They're kind of funny because there's this gorgeous picture and then this sort of blurred mask of Arthur Rimbaud. Arthur Rimbaud, in New York, he's at Coney Island. There's a picture of him at the piers. What do you make of the places where he put his character and took their picture?

Antonio Sergio Bessa: This is my reading. I was thinking that what Rimbaud went through in Paris, trying to live in Paris, he ran away from home several times, tried to survive in Paris, but Paris was in transformation. This was during the Commune in the early 1870s. The situation in New York in the 1970s was pretty much like that. There was a lot of economical changes. The city was kind of changing a lot of neighborhoods, and the creation of the financial center and all that. I think there is a way to do a parallel between those two things.

Alison Stewart: Do you remember that restaurant, Paris Commune, in New York City?

Antonio Sergio Bessa: No.

Alison Stewart: Oh, it was great. [laughs] That's another story. I'm speaking to Antonio Sergio Bessa, curator of a new exposition featuring the work of artist David Wojnarowicz at the Leslie-Lohman Gallery. The photographs in this exhibition feature what the text describes as a small coterie of friends. What do we know about them holding up the masks?

Antonio Sergio Bessa: There's at least two that we know for sure. Brian Butterick, who was a very good friend of David. He also played in a band that they had together called 4 Teens Kill 3 or 3 Teens Kill 4. I always make a mistake about that. Then John Howe, who was someone that I think David met in high school, and they were friends forever. David also, when he lived in France for almost a year, he began a relationship with a French man, Jean Pierre. Some of the performers, if you will, of the Rimbaud, is actually Jean Pierre when he came to New York to visit David. It was a very small group of people. It's interesting that we don't know for sure, but it seemed that David was never behind the mask.

Alison Stewart: What do we learn about David by looking at these photographs? What can we take away?

Antonio Sergio Bessa: What an ingenious, inventive person he was. I think this was, for me, the motivation to do this exhibition. I think a lot of people think of David as the AIDS activist. I think this is all right and it's all good. I think sometimes this image of himself as this political voice obscure the true genius of his work. I feel that the monologues that I just mentioned and this series of photographs just shows what a formidable artist he was. Really ahead of the curve. I think in my humble opinion, if you ask.

Alison Stewart: I will take it.

Antonio Sergio Bessa: I think this series is one of the most important works of the 1970s.

Alison Stewart: Truly.

Antonio Sergio Bessa: He was following on the path that some of the artists opened, like Vito Acconci, for example, Adrian Piper, but he actually pushed it much, much further. I think for someone to bridge this gap between literature and the visual arts, I think it's an amazing feat.

Alison Stewart: I've been speaking to Antonio Sergio Bessa, curator of a new exhibition featuring the work of artist David Wojnarowicz. It's at the Leslie-Lohman Gallery through January. Thank you so much for coming to the studio.

Antonio Sergio Bessa: It's always a pleasure to be here.