ACT UP Paris

By Julie Intartaglia

In 1987, Didier Lestrade - who was journalist for a cultural magazine at that time - is sent to New York to write about this new activist group called ACT UP.  He went to an ACT UP meeting and was stupefied by the energy and the fury of the group, and assisted in a public action.

After coming back to Paris, he felt a lack of activist action against AIDS in  France. He would take action and import a new kind of fight against AIDS. He asked Luc Coulavin and Pascal Loubet, two friends of his who were also journalists, to join him to create the organization. On June 26th 1989, Gay Pride's Day, they created ACT UP Paris.

At the creation of ACT UP Paris, a new form of fight against HIV/AIDS is born in France which took place on a political field. ACT UP Paris is built on the same model of ACT UP New York, its iconography, its rules and its structure have been reused. But aesthetically, ACT UP Paris have never reach the level of his american model. However, because the large number of journalists, writers, and university professors in the organization, ACT UP Paris produced a high level writing.

As in New York, the effectives and the power of ACT UP Paris has fallen in the mid-90's but the group has surmounted, and the members have adapted their concerns on current matters like the equality of the rights between straight and LGBT people, sex workers, access and treatment for all people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, access to medical cannabis, opening of shooting galleries for drugs users, and the access of health care services for migrants living with HIV/AIDS in France...
A lot of little direct actions are still organized by each caucus, so ACT UP Paris remains present and active in France today.

See ACT UP Paris' web site

Keith Haring: 1978-1982

The Contempory Arts Center of Cincinatti launches its new exhibition: Keith Haring: 1978-1982.

February 26 - September 5, 2011
Opening Celebration: Friday, February 25

"Keith Haring ranks among the most iconic, influential and popular artists in the world. Twenty years after his death, this is a rare and in-depth look at the prolific early years that established Haring’s language as an artist, his politics and social conscience, and his open homosexuality. This historic exhibition of rarely exhibited early work chronicles Haring's arrival in New York City (from his native Pennsylvania) and his immersion in New York’s dynamic downtown culture. It explores the vibrant and experimental years when Haring first enrolled in the School of Visual Arts, started a diligent and vigorous studio practice, began making public and political art on the city streets and subway stations, and enjoyed a frenetic social life. Joining an art community outside the institutionalized art system, Haring quickly befriended fellow artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf, as well as many of the most innovative musicians, performance artists and graffiti writers of the period. 

The exhibition delves into aspects of the artist’s life and production that have received insufficient attention to date: Haring as a thinker and facilitator, and his work as highly experimental and performative. It includes drawings and sketchbooks, videos, flyers, posters, photographs and subway drawings, as well as word collages, texts, and diaries. The exhibition offers an impression of Haring’s manifold maturation process, traces the development of his visual vocabulary and influences, and shows the artist as a philosopher and untiring initiator of artistic and political activities."

Hudson Guild Fulton Center presents Recyclables

Spirituality

P.P.O.W Gallery presents Spirituality, works by David Wojnarowicz, from 1979 -1990

March 3 – April 9, 2011

Opening Reception:

Saturday, March 5, 6-8pm

David Wojnarowicz, Untitled from the Ant series ( eye with ants), 1988-89

This exhibit comes on the heels of the censorship of A Fire in My Belly, from the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery. The gallery will present not only A Fire in My Belly, 1986-87, but also works which come before and after the making of this unfinished film. The exhibition will clarify various misconceptions that have been circulating in the past few months in the press and in discussions surrounding the censorship of the film, especially with regard to the films timeline in relation to Wojnarowicz’ biography,  its various incarnations and meaning.

P.P.O.W

535 West 22nd St, 3rd Floor

New York, NY 10011

T. 212 647 1044

F. 212 941 8643

info@ppowgallery.com

www.ppowgallery.com

Eric Rhein: Transmutation

Visual AIDS & BoxoFFICE present:

A special viewing of Eric Rhein: Transmutation and readings by Bill Kushner and Dan Fishback

Saturday April 2, 4-6pm / Readings begin at 5pm

Bill Kushner is the author of 7 books of poetry, most recently IN SUNSETLAND WITH YOU published by Straw Gate Books. A new volume titled WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT will be published Spring 2011. He is a 1999 and 2005 Fellow of the New York Foundation of the Arts. Bill Kushner lives in NYC. (photo credit / left: Bill Kushner by Nathaniel A. Siegel. © 2010)

Dan Fishback has been writing and performing in New York City since 2003. His most recent play, You Will Experience Silence (Stephen Brackett, dir.) debuted to critical acclaim in April 2009 at Dixon Place, where Fishback was an Artist-in-Residence. He has performed at Performance Space 122, Joe's Pub, Galapagos Art Space and various of other venues in New York and abroad. He is currently developing two new theater pieces: The Material World, a pop musical about socialist Jews in the 1920s, and thirtynothing, a solo performance about growing up in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic.  Fishback will perform thirtynothing at Brooklyn Arts Exchange on April 8-10, 2011. www.danfishback.com (photo credit / right: Dan Fishback by Allison Michael Orenstein)

Eric Rhein: Transmutation

February 12 - April 9 2011

Eric Rhein, a native of New York's Hudson Valley, and resident of Manhattan, is known for his refined and passionate wire drawings which combine human forms with animal and plant life. He weaves personal stories, experiences, and mysticism into explorations of the powerful connections among man, nature, and the spiritual world. This exhibition features Rhein's own photographs, as well as vintage photography of male nudes, combined with found objects and bronze & silver castings of leaves & twigs. (image: : Eric Rhein, Encountering Cernunnus, wire on paper, 2010)

 All events take place at 

 

 www.visualaids.org

421 Hudson Street, #701. New York, NY 10014  

Hours: Saturdays 1-6pm and by appointment                                                  

917.669.6098 

boxo@boxofficeprojects.com

www.boxofficeprojects.com 

Mark Morrisroe: From This Moment On

 

The Artists Space Gallery presents the exhibition Mark Morrisroe: From This Moment On.

March 9 - May 1, 2011

Opening Reception

Saturday, March 5, 6-8 PM

 

 

Mark Morrisroe, Jonathan, 1982

Mark Morrisroe: From This Moment On will be the first comprehensive exhibition in the United States of works by photographer and filmmaker Mark Morrisroe (*1959 - †1989), providing an insight into the radical and innovative output of his short career.

Mark Morrisroe’s work was intrinsically tied to his elaborate personage and his sexual and social re­lationships. He grew up in Boston where he worked as teenager hustler and where he later went to art school, before moving to New York City in the mid 1980s.

Morrisroe’s subjects were his friends, lovers, and his everyday surroundings. The imagery of his photographs and 8mm films combines the diaristic with the melodramatic, presenting the post-punk scenes in Boston and New York through a lens of vivid and romantic degradation and decay. He worked with the immediate medium of Polaroid, while also experimenting with the photographic process, creating layered and hand-painted prints, photograms and cyanotypes. His resulting works are searing and frank portrayals of the display of selfhood, sexuality, illness and death.

While his photographs often appear offhand, and depict intimate and at times deviant moments, they also present individuals, couples, and groups as aspirational, posturing starlets, adopting the faded hues of 1950s Hollywood publicity shots and the classical nude compositions of Man Ray. Drawing from drag, cabaret, club and drug scenes.

Read more here.

New housing policies : another blow for people living with HIV/AIDS

By Julie Intartaglia

On February 12th, the Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg presented the 2012 budget and the updated four-year financial plan. Some funding cuts have been operated in the founding for supporting housing for homeless people. This was accompanied by changes which are unfavorable for low-income people living with HIV/AIDS. Two new policies managed by HRA have been created.

The first new policy introduce the vouchers to pay security deposits. From now, the HRA (Human Resources Administration) will deliver vouchers - instead of checks -, intended to the landlords who have tenant on public assistance, but these vouchers will can only use by the landlord to repairs an apartment.

For the second policy, the HRA has mandated that it will only pay a broker's fee of up to half of a tenant's rent.

With this plan, the Mayor says the City will save money has heigh of $2.4 million in Fiscal Year 2011 and $4.8 million each year after.

In a city where it's harder and harder to find a housing for low-income people, this plan contributes to stigmatize and to overwhelm a little more the 26,000 New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS who are often in a critical financial situation and who need cash assistance from HIV/AIDS Services Administration.

Read more on the Housing Works web site here and here.

Bennington Meets Visual AIDS

 

January 6^th, was the first day of my internship at Visual AIDS. January 6^th, also happened to be the day before Postcards From the Edge opened--the atmosphere in the office was fast-paced and (understandably) a little frantic. Even with the initial “sink-or-swim” nature of my first day, Visual AIDS has become a more than welcoming and rewarding environment to be a part of.

My name is Sage, I am a student from Bennington College, and I have been interning with Nelson, Amy and Julie for the past month. At Bennington College each student participates in a "Field Work Term" for the months of January and February, which is how I learned about Visual AIDS. In my hometown of Houston, Texas I worked with Planned Parenthood and a local AIDS Foundation, however, I had never worked with an organization that combined visual art and AIDS awareness. While interning at Visual AIDS, I have worked closely with: art pieces from PFTE, the archive database, the Ribbon Project and the customer service line for Neopost.

Two things about my time at Visual AIDS stick out very clearly: the art and the people. Looking through the slides, the online database and the web galleries have given me a preview into the huge archive of art that exists in the office. The variety between themes, mediums, artists, messages,etc. is a wonderful thing to get lost in. Secondly, every day someone walks into the office that I get introduced to. It might be, "Sage, this is our good friend..." or "This is the artist/editor/director that works with...." or "He's curating our web gallery/summer exhibit..." These introductions prove to me just how valued Visual AIDS is and how many people collaborate, and have collaborated, to make it what it is today. I am happy to have joined this organization and contributed a little something to its vision.

Dancers Responding to AIDS Signature Events

DANCE FROM THE HEART 2011
Monday, March 21 | Tuesday, March 22
Cedar Lake Theater, NYC
6:30 pm $30 performance only
8:30 pm $75 includes post-performance cocktail reception with cast

Now in its sixth year, DANCE FROM THE HEART will feature four performances over two days. Experience the renaissance of Dance Theater of Harlem Ensemble, a premiere by Gallim Dance, the breathtaking artistry of Marcelo Gomes and Maria Riccetto of American Ballet Theatre and more. Learn who else is scheduled to perform and purchase tickets today.




FIRE ISLAND DANCE FESTIVAL 17
July 15-17
Fire Island Pines, NY

Save the date for the summer’s most spectacular dance event, FIRE ISLAND DANCE FESTIVAL 17. More information coming soon. For sponsorship opportunities please e-mail Denise Roberts Hurlin or call 212.840.0770, ext. 234.
Photo by Tom Caravaglia





PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY BENEFITS DRA
Friday, February 25, 8 pm
New York City Center
DRA Reception 6:15 pm

Paul Taylor Dance Company will donate a percentage of ticket sales to Dancers Responding to AIDS. The evening’s program includes Polaris, Cloven Kingdom and the New York premiere or Phantasmagoria.

Use the DRA code to purchase a $25-$100 ticket to the February 25 performance and 25% of the proceedswill benefit Dancers Responding to AIDS. A special number of DRA VIP tickets are available for $250 (includes a premium seat, gift bag and $100 tax-deductable donation). Use code “6589” for online ticket orders. Use code “DRA” at the box office or by calling 212.581.1212.

CREATION = LIFE

By Julie Intartaglia

W. Benjamin Incerti, Untitled, 1991, silver gelatin print, 42" x 30"

Using the collection of images from the Frank Moore Archive Project at Visual AIDS, I wanted to examine the relation between art and militancy against AIDS. I am particularly interested in the power of art to highlight a cause and to increase public awareness. In the case of the AIDS crisis, art is often used to show the reality of a situation for those living with HIV/AIDS. It’s also use to express how some people living with HIV/AIDS feel. Art activists help bring visibility to those living with HIV/AIDS in our society, and to fight the indifference, ignorance and  isolation they face.

In reseaching the Archive Project, I saw many images from protest and direct actions of ACT UP - an activist organization which continues to fight against AIDS. I begin with some of these photographs, to represent the history of AIDS activist, however I also wanted to include other types of works like graphic arts, collage, fabrication and installations, to show that the artistic response to end the AIDS crisis has taken multiple forms.

Much of the activist art works against AIDS has been created for a public space or from actions in a public arena. This is the case for the  documentary photographs of the actions of ACT UP taken by W. Benjamin Incerti and Brent Nicholson Earle.  The graphic works of Keith Haring and Carlos Gutierrez-Solana are also intended to be seen by as many people as possible, with the objective of passing on prevention messages about HIV/AIDS and to encourage people to reflect on AIDS. The work of Valerie Caris, Max Greenberg and Joe DeHoyos take a more intimate approach, exhibiting in art galleries, their work is concerned with more personal issues, such as medication, infections and the medical analysis that rhythms the every-day life of people who live with HIV/AIDS. 

AIDS is a disease which concerns both the private and public life, because the fight is both political and intimate - this selection of works attempt to shed light on these issues.


Biography

Julie Intartaglia is a student in Sociology of Cultural Policies at Paris-Diderot University and a member of ACT UP Paris - an activist organization fighting against AIDS. Last year, she have written a thesis for her Master's degree about the activist art against the AIDS crisis at the end of the 80's and at the beginning of the 90's in New York City.

W. Benjamin Incerti, Untitled, 1991, silver gelatin print, 42" x 30"

W. Benjamin Incerti, Untitled, 1990, silver gelatin print, 42" x 30"

   

W. Benjamin Incerti, Untitled, 1990, silver gelatin print, 30" x 42"

W. Benjamin Incerti, Untitled, 1991, silver gelatin print, 42" x 30"

Brent Nicholson Earle, ACT UP 10th Anniversary Action, 3/24/97, III, 1997, chrome, 11" x 17"

Brent Nicholson Earle, Fair And Equitable?, 1996, color photograph, n.a.

 

Brent Nicholson Earle, Marching For Their Children, 1996, color photograph, n.a.

Keith Haring, Mural in Barrio de Chino, 1989, n.a., n.a.

Keith Haring, Poster for ACT UP, 1989, n.a. n.a.

 Carlos Gutierrez-Solana, More Than, 1994, digital collage, 8" x 10"

  

Joe DeHoyos, Celebrity AIDS: David Bowie, 1997, collage, 10.7" x 7.75"

Joe DeHoyos, Celebrity AIDS: Sinead O'Connor, 1997, collage, 10.7" x 7.75"

Max Greenberg, Good n' Plenty, 2002, silver gelatin print, n.a.

Max Greenberg, AIDS 101 - An Intensive, 1997, photography, 10" x 8"

 

 Max Greenberg, Medecine Man, 1997, silver gelatin print, 8" x 10"

Valerie Caris, Vestment, 1993, fabric & mixed media, n.a.

 

Valerie Caris, Vestment (back view), 1993, fabric & mixed media, n.a.

Valerie Caris Vestment (front detail), 1993, n.a., n.a.

THE BLOODY SACRIFICE

THE BLOODY  SACRIFICE
A Personal Experience of Contemporary Blood Rites
By Charlotte Rodgers

The Bloody Sacrifice includes interviews with tattoo artists; priests from belief systems which utilise blood sacrifice; artists who use their own HIV positive blood as a medium; and those who use mortifications and body modification to effect changes in consciousness and self.

Charlotte Rodgers was born in New Zealand, received the PEN international young writers  award for 1983 and after many years of travel, fast living and dodgy magick, now leads a life of quiet eccentricity commuting between England and Asia.  She creates, exhibits, and occasionally sells art made from road kill and has had articles published in many magazines.

ISBN 978-1-906958-30-5
Publisher: Mandrake of Oxford

Testing USA on the road... an artist's inside view.

By Julie Intartaglia

 

Testing America at Mt. Rushmore

AIDS worker and photographer Azul Mares-DelGrasso documented the Testing USA Tour 2010. His series is viewable at: http://www.azulsinned.com and were part of the project's blog.

Last year, for the second time, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation sponsored an HIV testing tour of the USA. From January to August 2010, from Seattle to the Navajo Nation, a team of testers boarded a van to go out and meet people while offering free rapid HIV testing and prevention messages. Their approach is a fantastic way to provoke dialogue about HIV and to explain the importance of testing, especially to those who may not have thought about HIV or had access to testing. In every town they visited a partnership was established between the Testing USA Team and a local community center with the goal of gaining the trust of local populations and to integrate on-the-ground institutions in the project for long-term follow-up.

  

Rosie from Laramie, Wyoming              Ron from Nashville, Tennessee

Critical reflections of PrEP

via LifeLube

By Keith R. Green, MSW (Co-Chair Elect, Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus) interesting reflections on the NIH iPrEX results and CDC's, perhaps premature, recommendations from

"There are so many critical questions that must be answered before we allow those seeking to avoid contracting HIV to become convinced of the safety and efficacy of Truvada as PrEP:
•    Will African American MSM take PrEP as it must be taken in order for it to work? (Which includes taking it as a component of a comprehensive prevention package that includes condoms, counseling, and regular HIV/STI screening?
•    Does the general public understand that PrEP must be combined with other safe sex practices to derive the greatest protection from HIV?
•    Are we communicating, completely and honestly, the full range of risks involved with PrEP? Or do we really understand the full range of risks, particularly as it relates to resistance and how the potential for it varies from population to population?
•    What are the long-term effects associated with taking antiretrovirals preventatively?
•    Are we communicating effectively the fact that PrEP is not the ticket to a free ride on the “Sex Express”? (Condoms and other proven prevention strategies MUST be used)
•    Are we still advocating for regular HIV/STI screening and the power of knowing one’s status?"

Read on here...
And perspecitve's on its meaning for women by Anna Forbes  via RHRealityCheck.org.

Thanks to HIV Prevention Justice Alliance

A French intern at Visual AIDS...

My name is Julie, a French student at the Paris-Diderot University working on my Master of Sociology,  and I have been an intern at Visual AIDS since December 2010. I decided to do my internship with Visual AIDS because I share the idea that art is a tool to fight AIDS and to increase awareness about HIV/AIDS. I’m also interested in gaining professional experience in an American non-profit organization and learning how it operates, because I would like to work in a cultural non-profit organization in France after I graduate. This internship has immersed me in a world of art against AIDS.

I first learned of Visual AIDS while during research for my Master’s thesis. The theme of my dissertation was the mobilization of artists to fight the AIDS crisis in New York City, in the 80's. In France there currently isn’t an organization like Visual AIDS, I believe this is because there has never been any developed artistic scene against AIDS, and the French artists who live with HIV/AIDS haven’t gathered together in an art collectives or organizations. This poses the problem of the lack of conservation of the artworks, and it’s potential loss of place in history. As a member of ACT UP Paris, I know how the work of visual artists can helped mobilize people, disseminate political and prevention messages, contribute to a change in thinking and attitude and to advances the fight against AIDS.

Web Gallery: Why Religious Images Now? curated by José Vidal

Every month, Visual AIDS invites guest curators, drawn from both the arts and AIDS communities, to select several works from the Frank Moore Archive Project. For February 2011, José Vidal curates Why Religious Images Now? featuring artwork of Artist Members; Barton Lidice Benes, Mark Carter, Gregg Cassin, Gregory Maskwa, Berni Ortiz, Juan Andres Pulido, J. Robert Reed, John Sapp, Tom Shooter and Joey Terrill.

From the Curator's Statement:

As I worked my through the images in the archives of Visual AIDS, I began to notice a fairly large number of religious images.  I found this surprising, but also moving.  As I thought about it, I realized that I had simply assumed that most GLBTQ artists, even if they had been raised in religious households, were likely to be secular in their outlook, having decisively moved away from the religious traditions in which they had been raised.  As I worked my way through the archive, I realized that was simply not the case and I began to wonder why so many of the artists were drawn to religious themes and images? (read more)

About the Curator:
Jose Vidal is an architect, interior designer and freelance curator in New York City.  He was the curator for the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College before opening a private art gallery in his home. Vidal specializes in promoting gay Latino artists as well as collecting their work.

View WEB GALLERY here

[web gallery may contain adult content]