A significant mural by renowned artist and activist David Wojnarowicz (1954-92) that was rediscovered in a Louisville, Kentucky building in 2022 is now at risk of being concealed once again behind drywall construction. The late artist, whose career has experienced a major revival following the Whitney Museum of American Art's acclaimed 2018 retrospective "History Keeps Me Awake At Night," created this site-specific, two-part artwork in late 1985. The mural was originally part of a group exhibition called "The Missing Children Show: Six Artists from the East Village on Main Street," which was organized by local art dealer Potter Coe to raise funds for the Kentucky Child Victims Trust Fund.

The mural's rediscovery came about through a fortunate connection when local architect Moseley Putney was hired in 2022 to renovate the building where the original exhibition had taken place. Putney had actually attended "The Missing Children Show" decades earlier and had even met Wojnarowicz through his friendship with organizer Potter Coe. "I remember David's work was on a brick wall, while most other artists were on canvases," Putney told The Art Newspaper. When he heard about a mural hidden behind a sheetrock wall during the renovation planning, he immediately contacted the David Wojnarowicz Foundation's chair, Anita Vitale, through Coe.

The building that houses Wojnarowicz's mural is a former lithography factory that had been abandoned by the 1980s and is now being transformed into a high-end residential complex as part of a development known as the Billy Goat Strut in Louisville's trendy East Market District. According to current development plans, the floor containing the mural will be converted into a waiting room for a boxing gym designed for residents, which means the artwork would once again be hidden behind sheetrock walls. This prospect has deeply concerned art world professionals who recognize the historical and artistic significance of the work.

"We have been guaranteed by the building owners that no damage will happen, but still there won't be a way for the public to see the work," explained Wendy Olsoff, co-founder of PPOW, the New York gallery that began representing Wojnarowicz in 1988. Olsoff, who has been a longtime champion of the artist's work and legacy, expressed particular worry about the risks of water damage, leaking, or structural cracking that could occur while the mural remains concealed behind sheetrock. Both PPOW gallery and the Wojnarowicz Foundation have proposed an alternative solution to the building's developers, suggesting that the mural could be protected with transparent plexiglass instead of being completely hidden.

Putney eventually left the building renovation project, citing his disagreement with the developers about the mural's fate as one of the contributing factors to his departure. While removing the mural for professional conservation would be ideal, such an undertaking is considered highly unlikely due to the artwork's massive scale, as it spans two large sections of brick wall. Instead, Putney hopes that at minimum, the mural can be properly stabilized in its current location and made accessible to the public. "I hope they at least built a stud to make the drywall stand up and not touch the work," he said. "There is no art gallery in this area, so someone could build a gallery with the mural as part of it."

The original 1985 exhibition brought together six prominent figures from New York's East Village art scene, including Wojnarowicz, Judy Glantzman, Futura 2000, Rhonda Zwillinger, Rich Colicchio, and Kiely Jenkins, who all traveled to Louisville to create works in response to both the specific site and the exhibition's subject matter. Wojnarowicz's contribution to "The Missing Children Show" features many of his signature visual elements and trademark imagery. The mural includes a cartoonish depiction of a gagging or laughing cow with bulging eyes and a protruding tongue, as well as an exploding red house. One of the most striking elements is a circular portal that frames a disturbing landscape of piled animal carcasses set against a bright blue sky, with a globe showing red-colored continents hovering above this grim scene. The original installation also incorporated sculptural elements, including a teddy bear paired with an animal skull, a battery, a baseball jacket, and a skeleton.

Anita Vitale, who made a special trip to Louisville to view the mural in person, is working to organize commemorative events that would highlight the artwork's significance. She hopes to collaborate with the nearby Speed Art Museum and potentially partner with the University of Louisville to host a celebratory event marking the 40th anniversary of "The Missing Children Show" this year. "This is a little piece of Louisville history about people coming together to raise money for missing children," Vitale emphasized, underscoring the community spirit and charitable purpose that originally brought the exhibition to the city.

The mural's location and current predicament carry particular poignancy given Kentucky's recent adoption of laws that are increasingly hostile toward LGBTQ people and rights. Throughout his career, Wojnarowicz dedicated much of his artistic and activist work to fighting homophobia and racism, and he was also a vocal and prominent member of the movement to raise public awareness about HIV and AIDS during the U.S. government's apparent indifference to the health crisis throughout the 1980s. In recent years, Kentucky lawmakers have proposed or successfully passed numerous laws targeting LGBTQ rights, including 17 specific anti-transgender bills, making the preservation and public accessibility of Wojnarowicz's work even more culturally significant.

Meanwhile, Wojnarowicz's artistic legacy continues to gain recognition in major cultural institutions. On October 1st, the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art in New York will open a new exhibition focused specifically on Wojnarowicz's "Arthur Rimbaud in New York" series. This compelling body of work consists of black-and-white photographs that document the artist and his friends wearing Xerox-printed masks bearing the face of the titular French poet in various urban settings throughout New York City. The photographs' backdrops include iconic locations such as the subway system, Times Square, and the West Side piers. Notably, some of these photographs inadvertently capture glimpses of other long-lost murals by Wojnarowicz that can be seen in the background, adding another layer of historical and artistic significance to the series.