Exhibition 'An American Story', by Marion Scemama and David Wojnarowicz

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Curators

João Sousa Cardoso and Yannick Le Guillanton

Technique

multimedia

Closing date

2026-10-24

What's it about

Curators: João Sousa Cardoso and Yannick Le Guillanton The exhibition Marion Scemama / David Wojnarowicz: An American Story is built from historical and contemporary perspectives on issues such as gender, identity, and creation as an emergency in the face of death and the affirmation of a counterculture in the sociopolitical context of the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s. Eight themes have been defined to reflect on the unique relationship between David Wojnarowicz and Marion Scemama, in which the latter is revealed as an artist in her own right and not as a colleague or mere assistant of Wojnarowicz, who has since become an iconic figure of contemporary art. All the works in the exhibition reflect a well-intentioned society of the Reagan years and its conservative revolution, governed by violence, money, power, and social success, against the backdrop of the growing AIDS epidemic. It is also about the cultural fever of a New York City that reinvents itself and emerges as a new urban hub inhabited by a liquid, rebellious, and anticapitalist youth. These works traverse all media and the diverse forms of expression of the era to raise awareness and give voice to the values and demands of a community situated on the margins of social order. This exhibition is a coproduction with MAC/CCB - Museu de Arte Contemporânea e Centro de Arquitetura do Centro Cultural de Belém (Lisbon).

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