Una història americana

Photography exhibition in Sala 1 in Barcelona examining the relationship between Marion Scemama and David Wojnarowicz and the counterculture of the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The exhibition Marion Scemama / David Wojnarowicz: Una historia americana is built from historical and contemporary perspectives on gender, identity and creation as a response to death. Its central theme is the affirmation of a counterculture in the socio-political context of the United States during the 1980s and early 1990s. The curators are João Sousa Cardoso and Yannick Le Guillanton.

The itinerary is organised around eight themes that analyse the relationship between David Wojnarowicz and Marion Scemama, and presents the latter as an artist in her own right, not as a collaborator or mere assistant. Wojnarowicz is today an iconic figure of contemporary art. The works span the different media and forms of expression of the period, with the aim of giving voice to the values and demands of a community living on the margins of the social order.

The backdrop is the society of the Reagan era and its conservative revolution, marked by violence, money, power and social success, as well as by the growing AIDS epidemic. It also addresses the New York that was reinventing itself as a new urban centre, inhabited by a rebellious, anti-capitalist youth. The exhibition is a co-production with MAC/CCB, Museu de Arte Contemporânea e Centro de Arquitetura of the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon.