Robert Blanchon (1965–99) was an American artist born in Foxboro, Massachusetts. His conceptual artworks often dealt with histories of American Conceptual Art, the politics of AIDS, and representations of queer sexuality. Blanchon attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1984 to 1989, earning both a BFA and a MFA. While in Chicago, Blanchon was an active participant in the non-profit art scene, curating exhibitions at N.A.M.E. gallery, contributing to Tony Tasset, et al.'s artist project Anonymous Museum, and designing a poster for the City of Chicago's billboard campaign Art Against AIDS: On the Road.
‘Feeling animalistic. Feeling Hyena. Feeling Wolf. Feeling Dog. I am tongue and heart.’(David Wojnarowicz)
The Grazer Kunstverein continues to question the concept of social abstraction by presenting work by two exceptional American artists who have both gained cult status in the United States. Each of their practices investigates and translates the personal and physical relationship towards their surroundings.
© David Wojnarowicz ‘Arthur Rimbaud in New York (Tile floor, gun)’, 1978–79
The works of David Wojnarowicz and Robert Blanchon reflect upon the United States in the 1980s and throughout the '90s, when gay and queer politics were severely suppressed and questioned during the rise of the HIV/AIDS virus. The poetic but often direct approach of these two AIDS activist...