A central figure in New York's East Village art scene of the 1980s, Wojnarowicz was a painter, sculptor, photographer, writer, installation artist, musician, and video- and filmmaker. After being diagnosed as HIV-positive in the late 1980s, Wojnarowicz engaged in widely publicized debates over medical research and funding, censorship in the arts, and politically-sanctioned homophobia, lending his art a sharply political edge. The last few years of his life were an intense flurry of activity in a variety of mediums, fueled by rage and alienation that helped set the tone for contemporary art's exploration of social and private identities.