David Wojnarowicz, Untitled (Two Heads), 1984

Narrator: In this room, you can hear music by Wojnarowicz’s band, 3 Teens Kill 4. In a 1991 talk at the Whitney, he described the connection between his music and his visual art.

David Wojnarowicz: In the early 80s I started making a series of stencils, with spray paint. I was working with a rock and roll band called 3 Teens Kill 4. And we were playing in small clubs around the Lower East Side and I would do posters for the band. I cut stencils [and] spray painted through the stencils dates for the band, and where we were playing, and [I would] stick them on walls around the Lower East Side. And rival bands would rip them down. [There was] a lot of fighting in the music scene. So, I started spraying them directly on walls of abandoned buildings.