MAKE ART/STOP AIDS

MAKE ART/STOP AIDS—an internationally traveling exhibition co-curated by David Gere and Robert Sember—debuted at the Fowler Museum at UCLA and was on view February 23-June 15, 2008. It explored how artists around the world were responding to HIV/AIDS; and how their work raised awareness, inspired activism, and would ultimately help end global AIDS. Featuring examples primarily from the United States, South Africa, India, and Brazil—four disparate nations whose distinct experiences with and responses to the epidemic made insightful studies—MAKE ART/STOP AIDS presented some 60 works, which included contemporary paintings, sculptures, photographs, performance videos, posters, animated shorts, digital media, and installations recording the history of the epidemic and its enormity. The exhibition featured work by Robert Gober, David Wojnarowicz, Fiona Kirkwood, Daniel Goldstein, Jean Carlomusto, the collective Gran Fury, and many others, grouped around key questions.

What is AIDS?

MAKE ART/STOP AIDS opens by exploring how the AIDS epidemic is a socio-cultural phenomenon, shaped by belief, behavior, migration patterns, phobias, and gender-based inequities. Works of art make a significant contribution to defining the epidemic by reminding us that AIDS arises within our complex social worlds—worlds defined by difference, desire, inequality, and sometimes even violence. Included in this section are photographs that depict the various social impacts of AIDS by David Goldblatt, Zanele Muholi, Sunil Gupta, and others, as well as Lennart Nilsson’s strangely beautiful scanned electron microscope photograph of HIV, and a large-scale video projection by South African artist Churchill Madikida.

Who lives, who dies?

The next section of the exhibition illustrates how artists have made the political and ethical challenges of treatment a key focus of their work. Gregg Bordowitz’s installation Drive, 2003, which includes a line of clocks and the statement “The Aids Crisis is Still Beginning,” draws a direct connection between the epidemics in the U.S. and South Africa. Daniel Goldstein’s and John Kapella’s glittering, life-sized mobile Medicine Man, 2007, made of hundreds of pill bottles and needles, brings into focus the debate over access to life-saving medications. Photographs in this section by Pieter Hugo and David Wojnarowicz boldly address deaths caused by AIDS.

Why are condoms controversial?

When used properly, condoms virtually eliminate the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Yet some governments and religious institutions continue to argue against the use of condoms, or spread misinformation about their use, such as this past summer when Mozambique’s Roman Catholic archbishop accused European condom manufacturers of deliberately infecting their products with HIV. In this section of the exhibition, visitors are asked to ponder why the latex condom—one of the most significant public health inventions of the last century—is so contentious.

Brazilian artist Adriana Bertini’s eye-popping hot pink “dress” made entirely of thousands of condoms will be displayed along with Fiona Kirkwood’s 24-feet-long installation of men’s and women’s condoms that spells out the word “Survival.” Both pieces promote condom use and open up lines of communication on issues that would otherwise remain taboo. Other works, like the short video Perdão (Forgiveness) by Grupo Gay da Bahia, interrogate how moral dogma restricts access to information and products that can most effectively protect one’s health.

Are you afraid to touch?

In reaction to AIDS-related stigma, Indian photographer Dayanita Singh and American artist Sue Coe have focused on the simple act of touching—reinforcing the notion that hugs and handshakes are utterly safe activities. Working in a variety of media, artists whose work is featured in this section invite us to witness compassionate moments between caregivers and those living with or dying from AIDS. Even the tactile art of puppetry is being used to explore AIDS and touch, as evident in the performances on display by the innovative Indian AIDS activist/artist Anurupa Roy.

When was the last time you cried?

In 1993, the arts collective Gran Fury posed four simple questions on posters throughout New York City. The final question, “When was the last time you cried?” brought grief into the public space of their activism, acknowledging mourning as an essential experience of the AIDS epidemic. Given that sexuality and drug use are closely tied to transmission, many view AIDS-related illness and death as a form of punishment. To counteract this view, artists such as Jean Carlomusto, whose installation The Portrait Gallery of AIDS: A Living Archive, 2002 is displayed in this section, offer loving visual records, while other artists have created public performances of grief and mourning, such as Tracy Rhoades’ video Requiem.

Why a red ribbon?

In the late 1980s the red ribbon emerged as a direct reference to bureaucratic red tape, alluding subtly and poignantly to the need to speed up the pace of drug trials conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and to immediately provide experimental treatments for the ill and dying.

Since that time, the tension between ribbon as fashion statement and ribbon as activist symbol has been catalyzed by artists on several continents—making it one of the most recognizable, if perhaps overused, icons in the world. Creative artists continually strive to reinvigorate the symbol or, at the very least, to question its meaning.

This section includes a photograph documenting how community artists in Durban, South Africa wrapped a civic building in a huge red ribbon to demand governmental action, while David Goldblatt’s record of faded and tattered red ribbons across that country underscores failed promises to act against the epidemic. Artists in India, meanwhile, reinterpret the ribbon in particularly novel materials, as evident in a display of twenty-one ribbons, ranging from a glitzy profusion of gold and silver to the more humble terracotta.

Are you ready to act?

This final gallery is designed to inspire museum visitors to learn more about the epidemic and to share that knowledge with others. A recreation of Gran Fury’s and ACT UP’s iconic neon sign SILENCE=DEATH, originally installed at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in 1987, as well as a video installation by the collective Ultra-Red, and other works demonstrate that acts of intervention can take many forms, and ask visitors to consider their own role in this crisis.

Partial list of artists

Adriana Bertini, Gregg Bordowitz, Jean Carlomusto, Chandannagar Light Collective, Sue Coe, Lewis Evans, General Idea, Robert Gober, David Goldblatt, Daniel Goldstein, Gran Fury, Sunil Gupta, Pieter Hugo, John Kapellas, William Kentridge, Fiona Kirkwood, José Leonilson Bezerra Dias, Churchill Madikida, Gideon Mendel, Zanele Muholi, Lennart Nilsson, Tracy Rhoades, Anurupa Roy, Dayanita Singh, Penelope Siopis, Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, Ultra-Red, Clive Van den Berg, David Wojnarowicz.