December 1st is Day with(out) Art and World AIDS Day – an international day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis.
Johnstone, Fiona. 2023. AIDS and Representation : Queering Portraiture during the AIDS Crisis in America. London ; New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
Boris, Staci, Christopher Audain, Alphawood Gallery host institution, and Alphawood Foundation issuing body. 2018. Art AIDS America Chicago. Chicago: Alphawood Foundation.
Katz, Jonathan David, Rock Hushka, Bill Arning, and Tacoma Art Museum host institution. 2015. Art AIDS America. Seattle, WA: Published in association with University of Washington Press.
December 1st is Day with(out) Art and World AIDS Day – an international day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis.
Contemporary art has played a very important role in AIDS awareness over the last three decades. Today, AIDS-related artwork reflects the inequalities, disparities between wealthy and poor, global north and south, stigma, prejudice, and homophobia that key populations face.
Image 1: Close-up image of the cover of “bearing witness (to AIDS)”
Image 2: Stacks of books (see below for records)
Image 3: Front endpapers of “Art AIDS America”: Photo mural designed for Art AIDS America at Alphawood Gallery, Chicago, by Alex Kostiw from archival materials researched collaboratively with Jon Neff.
Image 4: Back endpapers of “Art AIDS America”: “Chalk Column,” Alphawood Gallery, Chicago, 2017.
Bearing witness (to AIDS)
McGovern, Thomas, 1957-
New York, N.Y. : Visual AIDS : A.R.T. Press, c1999.
HOLLIS number: 990082365370203941
Art AIDS America
Jonathan David Katz, Rock Hushka ; Bill Arning [and twelve others].
Katz, Jonathan David [author]
HOLLIS number: 990145294880203941
Art AIDS America Chicago
Edited by Staci Boris ; with contributions by Christopher Audain [and 12 others].
Chicago : Alphawood Foundation, [2018]
HOLLIS number: 99153752036003941
Pandemic : facing AIDS
Essays by Kofi Annan ... [et al.] ; edited by Nan Richardson, Rory Kennedy.
HOLLIS number: 990092418930203941
AMOQA is proud to partner with Visual AIDS for Day With(out) Art 2024 by presenting Red Reminds Me…, a program of seven videos reflecting the emotional spectrum of living with HIV today.
Red Reminds Me… will feature newly commissioned videos by Gian Cruz (Philippines), Milko Delgado (Panama), Imani Harrington (USA), David Oscar Harvey (USA), Mariana Iacono and Juan De La Mar (Argentina/Colombia), Nixie (Belgium), Vasilios Papapitsios (USA).
Through the red ribbon and other visuals, HIV and AIDS has been long associated with the color red and its connotations—blood, pain, tragedy, and anger. Red Reminds Me… invites viewers to consider a complex range of images and feelings surrounding HIV, from eroticism and intimacy, mothering and kinship, luck and chance, memory and haunting. The commissioned artists deploy parody, melodrama, theater, irony, and horror to build a new vocabulary for representing HIV today.The title is drawn from the words of Stacy Jennings, an activist, poet, and long-term survivor with HIV, who writes: “Red reminds me, red reminds me, red reminds me…to be free.”* Linking “red” to freedom, Jennings flips the usual connotations of the color and offers a new way of thinking about the complexity of living with HIV. Just as a prism bends and refracts light, Red Reminds Me…, expands the emotional spectrum of living with HIV. It shows us that while grief, tragedy, and anger define parts of the epidemic, the full picture contains deeper, nuanced, and sometimes contradictory feelings.
Video Synopses
Gian Cruz, Dear Kwong Chi
In Dear Kwong Chi, Cruz creates a video letter to the late artist Tseng Kwong Chi, drawing from the experience of living with HIV in diaspora. Across continents and decades, Kwong Chi’s legacy acts as an anchor for Cruz amongst limited representations of Asian narratives in AIDS histories.
Milko Delgado, El Club del SIDA
Taking its title from a sensational telenovela episode, El Club del SIDA cycles through a lifetime of heavily stigmatizing images about HIV and AIDS. Delgado plays with multiple aesthetics—documentary, horror, comedy—to explore the various relationships he has had with AIDS over the course of his life.
Imani Harrington, Realms Remix
Through a collage of poetry and archival images, Realms Remix traces memories and sensations of an AIDS past that continue to haunt the present.
David Oscar Harvey, Ambivalence: On HIV & Luck
Ambivalence: On HIV & Luck tackles the disorienting experience of existing with a manageable condition that our present culture insists on representing in terms of its bleak past. Interested in figuring HIV differently, the film presents a series of visual puns merging the iconography of HIV and AIDS with popular symbols of luck.
Mariana Iacono and Juan De La Mar, El VIH se enamoró de mi (HIV Fell in Love With Me)
HIV Fell in Love With Me tells the story of a woman with HIV embracing her sexuality and reconnecting with her pleasure. Filmed with an erotic aesthetic, the video reflects a pursuit towards sexual justice and autonomy for women living with HIV.
Nixie, it’s giving
Through home videos, archival footage and textile landscapes, it’s giving explores various forms of family across time. The artist's domestic life is paired with archival video of queer and trans chosen families mirroring small acts of joy, resistance, and sustenance. What does it mean for an HIV+ person, who carries the history and present of the AIDS-crisis in their DNA, to foster new life?
Vasilios Papapitsios, LUCID NIGHTMARE
Visual AIDS is a New York based non-profit that utilizes art to fight
AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving
a legacy, because AIDS is not over. visualaids.org
Today, December 1st, is a day filled with diverse observances, each with an important message.
World AIDS Day: Let's remember those lost and celebrate advancements in HIV research and treatment. #WorldAIDSDay
National Eat a Red Apple Day: Enjoy the health benefits and deliciousness of red apples. 🍎 #NationalEatAnAppleDay
National Bartender Day: Cheers to the talented individuals who craft our cocktails and create welcoming atmospheres. #NationalBartenderDay
Day Without Art: Reflect on the power of art and its impact on society, while remembering those lost to HIV/AIDS. #DayWithoutArt
Faux Fur Friday: Embrace the warmth and style of faux fur, a cruelty-free and sustainable alternative. #FauxFurFriday
National Christmas Lights Day: Let the holiday spirit shine bright with festive lights. ✨ #NationalChristmasLightsDay
Remember, each of these observances holds significance and invites us to reflect, celebrate, and take action. Let's spread awareness, show appreciation, and embrace the joy and diversity of December 1st.
December 2, 2022: Co-presented by Séro.Syndicat // Blood.Union - BUSS, @accmontreal and Queer Film Club, Day Without Art: Being & Belonging features works by HIV-positive artists and a Q&A with artist activists Camila Arce and @mkkultra. At Cinéma de Sève on the @concordiauniversity campus at 6:30 PM. Find this and many other Things to Do at the link in our bio. 🎥 #2slgbtq #lgbttravel #queercinema #daywithoutart #mtlmoments (at Montreal, Quebec) https://www.instagram.com/p/ClqtVy0L_Os/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Today, December 1, the Cultural Arts Building at UNCW joins museums, galleries, and arts institutions around the world to observe Day With(out) Art. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ The first Day With(out) Art was organized by Visual AIDS* in 1989. Coinciding with World AIDS Day on December 1, it was a call for action and mourning that would draw attention to the devastating impact of AIDS on the arts community. Hundreds of museums and galleries participated in the one-day moratorium on exhibitions, shrouding works of art and replacing them with information about the virus. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Thousands of arts institutions and organizations around the world continue to unite on December 1 to demonstrate the power of art to raise awareness about the AIDS crisis, which is far from over. Since the onset of the epidemic in the early 1980s, 79.3 million people worldwide have been infected and 36.3 million have died of AIDS. In 2020, 37.7 million people were living with HIV and 1.5 million were newly infected. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ To recognize Day With(out) Art 2022, a symbolic piece of fabric has been installed over a mural in the lobby and the CAB Art Gallery lights will be dimmed for the day. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Learn more about Day With(out) Art 2021 by visiting www.visualaids.org/blog/enduring-care ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ *Visual AIDS provides free services to HIV+ artists, including artist web pages, documentation of artwork, advocacy, exhibition opportunities and Artists Materials Grants, to empower artists to create. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ #DayWithoutart2022 #daywithoutart #visualaids #cabartgallery #uncwartgallery #uncwculturalartsbuilding #uncw #uncwilmington #wilmingtonnc #gallery #art #exhibition (at CAB Art Gallery at UNCW) https://www.instagram.com/p/CloqJVFPqX6/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
December 1 is traditionally Day Without Art to mark the impact of the AIDS epidemic on the artistic community. This year I am thinking of Phyllida Barlow speaking about the artists who make work yet, go unseen for years even decades and the agony of that, like the agony of the AIDS epidemic for so many years. Here: Frontier, Undercover and Tryst from Barlow. #daywithoutart #phyllidabarlow #artmatters https://www.instagram.com/p/ClojFXsJzKa/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
School children gather for World AIDS Day, Tompkins Square Park, New York City. @marciamarcusstudio #BeingAndBelonging @visual_aids #daywithoutart (at Tompkins Square Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/CloQL53LeGd/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
