David Wojnarowicz, A Fire in My Belly, 1986-87

David Breslin: In this exhibition, we decided to show Wojnarowicz's work in film as a series of his unfinished films that he made from 1986 through 1987. Wojnarowicz used film as a sketchbook. 

Narrator: David Breslin.

David Breslin: A Fire in My Belly is an unfinished work, called a work in progress, that he made between 1986 and 1987. This is footage that he shot while in Mexico City. He went there to document activities around Day of the Dead, and it was also right after a major earthquake that had happened in Mexico. 

Narrator: In one scene, Wojnarowicz films fire ants walking over a sculpted image of Christ. In 2010, this scene became controversial when it appeared in an exhibition called Hide/Seek: Difference in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery. The Catholic League, along with Representatives John Boehner and Eric Cantor, protested the imagery. 

Marvin Taylor: David was actually deeply religious, but people think that he hated the church—which is true. But he was raised Catholic and I see a lot of Catholicism in his work. 

Marvin Taylor: Ants are pretty cruel, pretty awful to one another. And they have a very rigid hierarchical structure. And I think that what he's motioning toward, is almost a military approach to the world. And the ants crawling over the Christ are not taking care of the body. It's the juxtaposition of suffering and humanity with a militarized culture. I think that's what that particular use of the ants is about.

Narrator: Fire in My Belly was never finished, and the remaining footage is silent. At the National Portrait Gallery, it was given a soundtrack drawn from a later recording of Wojnarowicz at an ACT UP rally, protesting the government’s reaction to AIDS. The video on view in Hide/Seek was thus quite different from what Wojnarowicz might have intended. In the face of protests, the museum removed this video from the exhibition a few weeks after its opening.