“Art AIDS America,” an exhibition that’s temporarily up in West Hollywood and opening with expanded works at the Tacoma Art Museum in October, looks at the mark left by AIDS on the American art scene.
Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe and Felix Gonzalez-Torres are just a few of the well-known artists who died of illness related to the virus, and the exhibit examines how the fear and pain from a misunderstood epidemic contributed the brutally personal pieces from those affected.
“Here was art living out its ideal and making change and doing it in an unapologetic way,” says Rock Hushka, the Tacoma Art Museum’s chief curator.
Here’s some of what what’s displayed:
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Niki de Saint Phalle’s AIDS, you can’t catch it holding hands (1987)
Joey Terrill’s Still life with Forget-Me-Nots and One Week’s Dose of Truvada (2012)
Andres Serrano’s Blood and Semen III (1990)
David Wajnarowicz’s Untitled (Buffalo) (1988) — Wajnarowicz made this piece while dying from the virus. He used the US governments eradication of the buffalo to represent the neglect of those suffering from AIDS.
Thomas Haukaa’s More Time Expected (2002) — In this piece, the horses without riders honor Native Americans who were lost to the disease.
Kia Labeija’s In My Room (2014) — Labeija, 26, was born with HIV which she contracted from her mother.
Keith Haring’s Altarpiece (1990) — This was the last piece Haring produced before his death.
Tino Rodriguez’s Eternal Lovers (2010)
via Wired
Ron Loftus
when the passion takes over prudence
Stache99
@Ron Loftus: That’s all you took from this post?
Glücklich
I like “More Time Expected”. The rest are not my taste.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Thomas Haukaa’s More Time Expected. Beautiful in concept as well as execution.
charlie_jackpot
Untitled (Buffalo) is my favourite
Chris
The last one, Eternal Lovers, looks like something done for the Day of the Dead in Mexico. Macabre to the point of cool.
Glücklich
@Chris:
It is cool but nothing I’d want in my house.
Kangol
AIDS wiped out several generations of gay visual artists, including Peter Hujar, Keith Haring, David WOJNAROWICZ (his name is misspelled twice above), Martin Wong, and many others.
It also reintroduced another element of politics into the visual arts, particularly around gay male sexuality and queer sexualities, at a time when post-modernism was very strong. The LGBTIQ communities lost so many talented people, many of whom would be major stars in the arts had they survived.