Screening and Conversation: Memories That Smell Like Gasoline

This event is at capacity, please consider joining the waitlist.

Join us for a screening of David Wojnarowicz’s final reading followed by a dialogue with artists and writers Eileen Myles and Maggie Nelson.

Reading work from Close to the Knives (1991) and Memories That Smell Like Gasoline (1992) at a 1991 benefit for ACT UP’s needle exchange program at our neighboring Drawing Center, David’s cadence and endurance highlight the long-known catastrophic failures of state-sanctioned, queer erasure. The following conversation considers how David’s rigor, notions of visibility, and the poetics of art and activism manifests in our current moment. In celebration of Nightboat Book’s re-release of , featuring a foreword by Ocean Vuong and a note from the editor Amy Scholder, limited publications will be available for purchase.

This event is organized in the framework of , on view through January 18, 2026, in partnership with Nightboat Books. Video of David Wojnarowicz reading comes courtesy of James Wentzy, Dean Lance, and John Schabel. Space is limited– please register with intention.

About the Book
David Wojnarowicz, one of the most provocative artists of his generation, explores memory, violence, and the erotism of public space—all under the specter of AIDS. Here are David Wojnarowicz’s most intimate stories and sketches, from the full spectrum of his life as an artist and AIDS activist. Four sections—”Into the Drift and Sway,” “Doing Time in a Disposable Body,” “Spiral,” and “Memories that Smell like Gasoline”—are made of images and indictments of a precocious adolescence, and his later adventures in the streets of New York. Combining text and image, tenderness and rage, Wojnarowicz’s Memories That Smell like Gasoline is a disavowal of the world that wanted him dead, and a radical insistence on life.

Bios
Eileen Myles (them/them, b. 1949) is a poet, writer and activist widely known for their practice of vernacular first-person writing across genres. They are the author of 25 books, including Chelsea Girls, Pathetic Literature and a Working Life (poems). Forthcoming from Fonograf in April 26 is Birdwatching, a long unpublished poem from 1978 and three early books. They live in New York and in Marfa, TX.

Maggie Nelson is the author of many acclaimed books, most recently the book-length essay The Slicks: On Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift (2025) and Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth (2025). Previous works include Like Love: Essays and Conversations (2024); the national bestseller On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint (2021); the international bestseller The Argonauts (2015); The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (2011); Bluets (2009; adapted for the stage by Katie Mitchell at the Royal Court Theatre of London); and The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial (2005). A recipient of a MacArthur “genius” fellowship, she currently teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.

Accessibility

We strongly encourage you to arrive on time for event check-in to secure a seat as we are first come, first serve. If we reach maximum capacity, those who arrive late for check-in may not be guaranteed a seat. English captions will be available for the video.

Located at 26 Wooster Street, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art strives to provide a welcoming environment to all visitors. Five external steps lead to our entrance doors: a wheelchair lift is available. All galleries are wheelchair-accessible, and a single-occupancy accessible restroom is located behind the visitor services desk: all restrooms are gender-neutral. Large print didactics are available.

For questions or access requests, please email aW5mbyB8IGxlc2xpZWxvaG1hbiAhIG9yZw== with 1 week advance of your visit.

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