True to his self-taught approach, David Wojnarowicz challenged the boundaries between languages, media, and actions, escaping univocal definitions: he was a painter, musician, photographer, writer, Super 8 filmmaker, and a key player in the vibrant social and cultural scene of New York's East Village in the 1980s. His visceral work stands out for its collaborative spirit—in fluid communion with others—but also for its rebelliousness. A member of the act-up collective, Wojnarowicz was an activist deeply involved in gay identity politics before and during the AIDS epidemic, a disease that deprived him of friends and lovers and even took him in 1992, at the age of 37.

This book reveals the behind-the-scenes of the scenes that are the focus of his most famous works, and presents the constant recording of his body, which intensifies when he receives his HIV-positive diagnosis. He is aware of having contracted a virus that also embodies the worst of a sick society; one that increasingly marginalizes and excludes dissidents, abandoning them to their fate. In the Shadow of the American Dream exhibits the private record of a sensitive and committed Wojnarowicz, overwhelmed by the demands of survival, pursuing pleasure and freedom even when there is no more light at the end of the tunnel.