Resource Logo New York Times  After Chronicling History, SoHo
Artist Is Losing a Vantage Point   James Wentzy in the living
room of his basement apartment at 12 Wooster Street in SoHo,
where he has lived since 1982. He must vacate the space in a
month or two.  In 1990, James Wentzy - a 38-year-old struggling
artist, darkroom wizard and self-described SoHo homesteader -
learned he had H.I.V. Faced with his own mortality, he decided
reluctantly to do something he hated. Work.  "I'll be dead real
soon," he figured. "No later than the end of '90. I'll work real
hard so that when I die, it'll be a relief."   What Mr. Wentzy
didn't do was die. So his tape collection grew and grew and grew
into an archive about 600 hours long, or 25 entire days from
beginning to end. There were incendiary moments, as when
protesters hurled the ashes of AIDS casualties over the White
House fence, and quiet ones, as when the poet Jaime Manrique
recalled visiting with the writer Reinaldo Arenas, who was
suffering from AIDS, the day bef