World Class Exhibition surveys 30 years of AIDS
Published in the Weekly Volcano, Oct. 8, 2015
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Joey Terrill
(born 1955), Still Life with
Forget-Me-Nots
and One Week’s Dose of Truvada,
2012. Mixed
media on canvas, 36 × 48 inches.
Leslie-Lohman
Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art,
Foundation
purchase. Photo courtesy of
Leslie-Lohman
Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art.
|
If I were
allowed 6,000 words instead of 600, I probably still couldn’t do this
exhibition justice. The amazing thing about it is that it was locally curated,
by Tacoma Art Museum’s Rock Hushka in partnership with The Bronx Museum of the
Arts and co-curator Jonathan David Katz from the University at Buffalo (The
State University of New York).
Art AIDS America is as good as any major exhibition put together by any great museum in
America. This is a major coupe and a show that
should be seen by everyone. Way to go, Rock Hushka and TAM!
This exhibition
surveys some of the best and best-known art about the AIDS epidemic from the
early 1980s, when AIDS was a mysterious
disease called “the gay cancer”, until
today. Much of the art was created by artists living with AIDS or by artists
who have died due to AIDS-related illness. The disease may no longer be an
automatic death sentence, but people living with the HIV virus are kept alive
by drugs that often have devastating side effects, and they do not save everyone
who is infected.
The exhibition
“creates spaces for mourning and loss, yes, but also for anger and for joy, for
political resistance and for humor, for horror, and for eroticism,” says
co-curator Katz.
Famous artists
represented in the show include such luminaries as Keith Haring, Jenny
Holzer, Annie
Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Judy Chicago, and Jasper Johns. Lesser known
artists such as Shion Attie, Eric Avery, Charles LeDray make devastatingly
powerful statements Luis Cruz Azaceta’s “Babies with AIDS” is an American flag
with dead or dying babies strung out on it like so many insects or like Kaposi
sarcoma lesions. Looking at it made me gasp.
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Julie Tolentino
(born 1964),
THE SKY REMAINS
THE SAME: Tolentino
Archives Ron
Athey’s Self-Obliteration #1,
2008.
Chromogenic color print, edition 1 of 5,
17 × 11 inches.
Documentation courtesy of
Leon Mostovoy,
Courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth &
Council, Los Angeles.
Photo courtesy of the Estate of Albert J. Winn
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David
Wojnarowicz’s “Bad Moon Rising” is a breathtaking collage of multiple photos of
his dying lover and fellow artist, Peter Hujar (works also included in this
show) with a horrifying rant against people and institutions that ignored the
AIDS crisis printed over his images.
Jim Hodges’
“When We Stay” is a delicate yet strong curtain of silk, cotton and polyester
flowers sewn together, each flower connected with a single thread. Beautiful
and expressive, its connection with AIDS sinks
in gradually.
Leibovitz’s
portrait of Kerie Campbell’s nude body painted with primitive-looking symbols for the HIV virus is frightening
and strong. I could not look away.
These are but a
tiny sampling of the 125 works of art in this exhibition. Many of the images
and descriptions cannot be printed in this newspaper, and that is a shame. It
is an uncomfortable show. It will make you squirm, and it will make you angry.
It should make you want to support the effort to eradicate this horrible
disease. The fact that a lot of what can be seen here is great art is almost a
side benefit.
There will be
many excellent programs held in conjunction with the exhibition, including an
artist’s talk by Micha Cárdenas Oct. 15 at 6: 30 p.m.; a talk on the AIDS
Memorial Quilt with Julie Rhoad, president and CEO of the Names Project, Nov.
15 at 2 p.m.; a community conversation on “Faith and Positivity” Nov. 19 at 6
p.m.; and an artist’s talk and performance by Karen Finley Dec. 5 at 2 p.m.
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