Painter, photographer, writer, AIDs activist, David Wojnarowicz (pronounce woy-na-roh-vich) was born in New Jersey in 1954 and died in New York in 1992, at 37. He and his two siblings endured an abusive father, who kidnapped them after he and their mother divorced. They escaped and moved in with their mother in New York City, but by the time he was 17, Wojnarowicz was living on the streets. In 1978, he went to Paris for the first time, chasing a vision of the French symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, a runaway like himself whose art was touched with a transgressive surrealism. Feeling parallels between himself and Rimbaud, and 1980s New York and 1880s Paris, Wojnarowicz began work on a series of photo-performances. “Arthur Rimbaud in New York” was first exhibited at P.P.O.W gallery, in 1990, with a selection of 25 images. In two subsequent shows the number of images was 44 and 32. This exhibition at Leslie–Lohman features images from all three portfolios, as well as from the artist’s foundation. Rimbaud, too, died at just 37. —Laura Jacobs