Bowing to pressure from right-wing critics, the National Portrait Gallery has decided to remove David Wojnarowicz's film "A Fire in My Belly" from its groundbreaking exhibit "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture". [more inside]
posted by ryanshepard on Dec 1, 2010 - 108 comments

Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters 1985–2010... (possibly NSFW) [more inside]
posted by artof.mulata on Oct 14, 2010 - 9 comments

Eileen Myles on ACT UP-New York in Artforum Myles' review of an ACT UP NY art retrospective at Harvard's Carpenter Center is a thoughtful essay in its own right. A more straight(?)-forward review of that exhibition from Frieze Magazine. And, for good measure, "The ACT UP Oral History Project is a collection of interviews with surviving members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, New York." The Oral History Project is on special display at the Carpenter Center.
posted by liketitanic on Mar 6, 2010 - 11 comments

The winning design for the National AIDS Memorial Design Competition has been announced. Janette Kim and Chloe Town's "Living Memorial" references forest fires, and will be located in the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Walter Hood, a juror, called the design a “gutsy anti-landscape element that reflects anger, death—and eventual healing and renewal.”
posted by R. Mutt on Apr 26, 2005 - 13 comments

"His voice was otherworldly — you couldn't believe the sound". Everyone who ever heard Klaus Nomi's voice had the same comment: "It can't be real." You hear that response throughout "The Nomi Song," the documentary about the obscure German-born artist who was a fixture on the New York music scene in the late '70s-early '80s, and a legitimate pop star in Europe. He was also a mystery, even to those who knew him. The film primarily covers the years between his 1978 New York club debut - which was captured on film - and his AIDS-related death in 1983 at age 39. Nomi never had an album officially released in the U.S. but was wildly popular among New York clubgoers as well as in France and his native Germany. More inside.
posted by matteo on Feb 3, 2005 - 59 comments

Artists and AIDS - in 1986, Mesami Teraoka began his series of AIDS themed watercolors and they have been exhibited widely since. The art community has been an important force in raising both public awareness and funds for the AIDS epidemic. Visual AIDS has been in the forefront of mobilizing the art community. The site contains a rich archive of work since 1999, with special exhibits on art for Africa and the women of Visual Aids. Another international effort, Artists for AIDS, was started by Canadian artists to raise money for African children with AIDS. Some earlier group art projects include Ten Years, Ten Artists, Making Art & Raising Hell and Art Against AIDS, a Ukrainian collection of posters and prints. Some art contains adult themes & Teraoka's site has a warning.
posted by madamjujujive on Dec 1, 2002 - 1 comment

Frank Moore [NYT], the originator of the red ribbon, died of AIDS last week. His gorgeous paintings depicted politics from Yosemite to Versace. As one of the few incredibly contemporary but still publicly accessible artists, he will be missed.
posted by RJ Reynolds on Apr 26, 2002 - 4 comments

The AIDS Memorial Quilt has an official website. Its quilt image database is browsable and searchable by name, and includes images of over 42,960 individual panels, each in honor of a lost loved one.

It's an utterly amazing testament to those claimed by the disease, and to those who have survived them.
posted by mattpfeff on Dec 1, 2001 - 2 comments

michael dowling's medicine wheel (scroll down) an annual event on world aids day in boston -- md creates a labyrinthe/medicine wheel to honour the dead and help the living remember. what are your cities doing for a day without art?
posted by pxe2000 on Dec 1, 2001 - 0 comments