David Wojnarowicz

Falling Buffalo Series (1988) is the emblematic series of David Wojnarowicz with an iconic image that has become a symbole of pop culture.

David Wojnarowicz went to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the national museum of natural history, and discovered a diorama that depicted an early Native American hunting technique. Disguising themselves with buffalo or wolf hides, hunters would pass by buffaloes to encourage them to follow them, leading them towards the cliff and push them towards the fall. Several days could be necessary to herd the animals into the correct position which led to their deaths. The artist adopted this anguishing and alarming image in response to being diagnosed with Aids. This dramatic but artificial diorama illustrates what was a real crisis within his community, establishing a parallel between the extermination of buffalo in 1880 and the epidemic that disproportionately affected homosexuals in 1980. He links the buffaloes' hopeless fate to the negligent public health policies responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. The fall of buffaloes to their death becomes a haunting metaphor of our ecosystems and their own destruction. The artist photographed and reframed the diorama's image in such a way as to create a new majestic image that is also hopelessly, tragically and surprisingly moving.