A Wojnarowicz Mural Was Rediscovered in Kentucky After Four Decades

In 1985, David Wojnarowicz and a group of other New York artists made a trip to Louisville, Kentucky, to create site-specific murals as part of a week-long fundraiser. They had created their murals with the understanding that they would soon be destroyed.

Then in 2023, the Wojnarowicz Foundation received word saying that the late artist’s mural, titled ‘The Missing Children Show’ Mural, had never been destroyed but just covered by a false wall. But, now 40 years later, the work has been covered once again.

“What is left is the largest known extant mural David ever created, densely packed with his signature imagery—gagging cow, burning house, globe, meat carcasses, and more,” Wendy Olsoff, cofounder of P·P·O·W, the New York gallery that represents the Wojnarowicz estate, told ARTnews in an emailed interview. “These images are directly connected to David’s personal biography: the divided exploding suburban-like house and the destruction of nature exemplified with carcasses and a terrified cow.”

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Wojnarowicz’s mural is sited in the former Kentucky Lithography Co. Building, at 600 East Main Street. When he arrived in Louisville to participate, the building was being converted into apartments and a commercial space after having been abandoned for years. “The Missing Children Show: 6 Artists from the East Village on Main Street” was a fundraiser organized by local art dealer Porter Coe to benefit the Kentucky Child Victims’ Trust Fund, which “provides funding for child abuse and neglect prevention,” according to its website.

“The work also reflects David’s enduring commitment to social justice and amplifying silenced voices. I think he took this commission very personally as a fundraiser for the Kentucky Child Victims’ Trust Fund, as he related to child abuse and trauma firsthand,” Olsoff said.

‘The Missing Children Show’ Mural spans two walls of the 600 East Main Street with three scenes. Included in them are two of Wojnarowicz’s most iconic motifs: the head of a cow with its tongue sticking out and a two-story house spilt in half. In between these two depictions, Wojnarowicz painted a portal-like view showing several cow carcasses; above was a painted depiction of the globe, showing the Americas.

For the 1985 exhibition, Wojnarowicz also created an installation in front of the mural that included “a larger format lantern battery, a teddy bear with an animal skull protruding from its face next to an alarm clock, a pair of gloves, a child’s red baseball jacket, and a yellow skeleton … which was suspended face down from the ceiling over the chair. In front of the chair with a crawling baby on its seat … were three paper hunting targets, one of which had a deer painted on it,” according to a 2017 master’s thesis written by archivist John B. Henry.

Once construction on the apartments above was completed, the lower level, where the six artists, which also included Futura 2000, Judy Glantzman, and Rhonda Zwillinger, had made their murals would be next. Covering the exhibition for the Louisville Times, journalist Larry Bleiberg reported at the time, “The newly created art works are likely to be destroyed when the bottom floor is leased, Coe said.”

Believing it to be destroyed, the Wojnarowicz Foundation only had documentation from the artist’s archive that the work had existed at all. “Large installations were integral to David’s work at this exact time in his career,” Olsoff said. “The Missing Children Show installation represents a significant example of this practice.”

Then, two years ago, the foundation learned the mural had not been destroyed, when it received an email from Moseley “Mose” Putney, a local architect who at the time had been leading renovations on the 600 East Main Street building. In his email, according to P·P·O·W, Putney said, “I heard from the former owner and friend that there was a ‘painting behind a wall,’ so I made sure demolition didn’t mess it up.” When he saw the mural, Putney, who had attended “The Missing Children Show” in 1985, immediately recognized it as the Wojnarowicz work, the last of the six artist’s work to survive.

In July 2022, Zyyo, a New York–based real estate development firm, purchased the building. At the time, a law firm was leasing the space where Wojnarowicz and the other artists had created their work. When the firm vacated the space, Zyyo began to renovate it, with the aim to turn it into a “first-class gym,” according to Jamie Campisano, Zyyo’s chief creative director. Zyyo discovered it in March 2023 and representatives from the Wojnarowicz Foundation visited the site in May 2023, as did representatives from Louisville’s Speed Museum around this time.

Last month, Zyyo reinstalled drywall in front of the Wojnarowicz mural in order to lease the space to a gym operating, believing “the wall could be used in a matter more conducive for a gym,” Campisano wrote to ARTnews in an email. “There is ample air space between the drywall and the mural to provide for its protection … in the same fashion it was protected for 30 years.”

She continued, “This has been a very unique situation because if the mural has been on a canvas or a non-structural wall, we would have gladly handed it over to the foundation on day 1. But unfortunately, that was not possible.”

In the intervening time, the foundation’s communication with Zyyo has been conflicting and confusing, with periods in which the foundation struggled to get a response. “Responses from the developers varied widely, largely depending on the individual the Foundation was in contact with,” Isaac Alpert, P·P·O·W’s director of estates, told ARTnews. “Some expressed strong enthusiasm for preserving David’s work, others were more reserved and pragmatic, and a few made it clear they had no interest in engaging with the Foundation about the mural.”

Campisano added, “Early on we were told we are obligated to protect the mural, but we are not obligated to display it.”

The Wojnarowicz Foundation disagrees and believes the work should be displayed as it would provide scholars, artists, and anyone interested in Wojnarowicz’s art “a wealth of information for analyzing David’s career and tracing the lineage of the artist’s visual motifs,” including his process and the gestures required to scale up his imagery to this size.

“It’s impossible to quantify what is lost when a major artwork is no longer viewable,” Alpert said. “Additionally, it cannot be overstated what it means for other individuals—artists, scholars, curators—to have visual proof of how David utilized his skills and practice in service to social justice. Especially in the context of the current political climate, it’s important to have historical examples on which to build new movements that promote community building and collective action.”