Installation 5
From David Wojnarowicz Knowledge Base
Installation #5
Anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge
1985
Contents
About
In the summer of 1985, Wojnarowicz was one of fourteen artists selected by Creative Time to create an installation in the Anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge.
According to Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz,
“David's piece was installed in one of the 'most confined and sinister spaces,'" according to the brochure handed out for that year's Art in the Anchorage. He created a cannibal tableau, a family dinner in hell, in which two skeletons sat at either end of a long table. One of them, painted red, applied bare wires from a radio to a yellow skeleton stretched on the table before it. The other skeleton looked blue but was at least partly covered with maps. It had a blue baby doll raised to its mouth. Blood dripped down the torn tablecloth. There was a centerpiece of burnt wood; around it, debris, half-drunk glasses of wine and a bottle of Night Train (with Ronald Reagan’s face on the label). Dry leaves and other detritus littered the ground. Behind the blue skeleton was a roadside scrum of weeds, old tires, and another skeleton at least partly covered in maps, which was seated in one of the tires, a globe between its knees and a gun in its mouth. David hired his friends Steve Doughton and Philip Zimmerman to help him create what he simply called Installation #5.[1]
Installation View
People
Doughton is an artist, filmmaker, and friend of Wojnarowicz, who helped install Installation #5
Zimmerman is an artist and friend of Wojnarowicz, who helped install Installation #5
