Interview with David Kiehl by Diana Kamin and Marvin Taylor on 8-10-2016
David Kiehl is the Nancy and Fred Poses Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he is curating the retrospective David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake At Night, opening Summer 2018. He has been the curator of prints at the Whitney since 1993.
Interview abstract
Discusses Wojnarowicz’s print work [p.1; 1:08-3:53min] and bringing together the largest museum collection of Wojnarowicz’s prints at the Whitney Museum (p.2-3; 3:53min-9:24min); explains his motivations for proposing a Wojnarowicz retrospective (p.3, p. 13; 9:24-14:38min, 59:40-60:45min) and putting together the exhibition catalogue (p. 3-5; 14:38-16:25min, 18:20-24:00min); describes the layout of the exhibition and a rough description of the works included (p.5-7; 24:40-35:55min); discusses adapting work that originally shown in 1990s East Village scene to museum context and addresses his decision not to recreate site-specific installation work (p9-11, 42:53-52:10min); addresses Wojnarowicz’s film and video work and decision not to include film and video within the exhibition galleries (p. 14-15; 60:58-65:00min); discusses his research into Wojnarowicz’s framing and installation preferences—namely that Wojnarowicz did not express strong preferences, aside from the artist’s frames for the Sex Series (p. 16-17; 70:30-75:00min); discusses Wojnarowicz’s scavenging of materials like Masonite (p.16, 71:00min)