Memories That Smell like Gasoline

'Wojnarowicz is a spokesman for the unspeakable.' – New York Magazine

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.

The new and revised edition features a foreword by Ocean Vuong and a note from the editor, Amy Scholder.

Author: David Wojnarowicz

Paperback  Published 1 November 2025  96 pages