Aug 17, 2023 - Sale 2644

Sale 2644 - Lot 253

Price Realized: $ 37,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000

DAVID WOJNAROWICZ (1954-1992)


Untitled (Buffaloes).
Platinum print, the image measuring 254x352 mm; 10 1/2x13 7/8 inches, the sheet 406x505 mm; 16x19 7/8 inches, with Wojnarowicz's Estate stamp and edition notation 24/100 in pencil on verso; enclosed in the original paper folder with an original text by David Wojnarowicz and the printed colophon and publishing information. 1988; printed 1994.

David Wojnarowicz made this image of a diorama at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. soon after his own AIDS diagnosis. The image of the buffalo falling over the edge of a cliff draws a parallel between their freefall and near-extinction and the government's inadequate response to the AIDS epidemic.

"Even in the face of something like gravity, one can jump at least three or four feet in the air and even though gravity will drag us back to the earth again, it is in the moment we are three or four feet in the air that we experience true freedom." - David Wojnarowicz