Art of the AIDS Crisis
[2] Art of the AIDS crisis typically sought to make a sociopolitical statement, stress the medical impact of the disease, or express feelings of longing and loss.
Individual artistry of the AIDS crisis often was often found in museums or art galleries, in the spaces that only the economically and socially privileged could benefit from their messages.
Artistic and Activist Collectives were meant to reach the general public, providing a space to build community, mourn, and spread education about the AIDS epidemic in a much more prolific manner.
[3] The National AIDS Memorial Grove, which can be found in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, was first conceived by a group of local individuals in 1988.
Work began at the site of the de Lavveaga Dell in 1991, and in 1996, Nancy Pelosi led the United States Congress in passing the National AIDS Memorial Grove Act of 1996, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Some characteristic features of DIVA TV were its staunchly unprofessional style, with unrefined shots and no studio cleaning up of the footage, and tendency towards civil disobedience.
The agency offered several workshops aimed at a vast array of different identities in order to facilitate discourse and build communal relations while also educating the young population about sexual practices and the issues of the AIDS epidemic.
During the exhibition at the MOMA, an offset of ACT UP called the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power staged a very calm protest against Nixon's images of PWA.
Gupta created a series titled From Here to Eternity in 2001 in which he photographs his daily life and routines as a person living with HIV, including getting blood drawn.
In the USA he was able to get a lot of attention with his films Silence = Death and Positive (1990), which deal particularly with the fight of American artists such as Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz against AIDS.
The artist was particularly provoked by the silence of the Reagan and Bush administrations in regards to the AIDS crisis, which he saw as a result of the straight white men being the ones in charge of what the public is exposed to via the media.
[15] Felix Gonzalez-Torres has become a famous queer artist in contemporary America, and he created many works in relation to AIDS, specifically how HIV/AIDS affected his romantic life.
The emotional toll of losing a lover to disease was emphasized, allowing audiences to examine a Queer relationship through a loving, domestic lens, distant from any presumed homoeroticism that masses expected to find with AIDS-related art.
Instead, Gonzalez-Torres made several post-minimalist pieces that were regarded as timeless, and photographs that any individual could relate to without ever knowing its queer undertones "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.).
[17] Gonzalez-Torres desired to bring the discussion about queer identity and the AIDS epidemic away from the legislative halls of the country and into the more public space of the art gallery.
Haring knew he wanted to create public art based on his inspiration from artists such as Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Robert Henri.
Haring's last major collaboration The Valley with William S. Burroughs is an ominous allegorical depiction of the horror and chaos of the AIDS Crisis, published weeks before his death.
[21] The AIDS Quilt Songbook initially was an 18-song collection that premiered in 1992 but now is an ongoing song-cycle by multiple composers, now with sub-collections centered in Chicago, Minnesota, Chapel Hill, Philadelphia and Tacoma.
It contains portraits of famous activist friends now dead, and unusual effects like the use of police whistles to recall street demonstrations by ACT UP, the direct action protest group of which Lyle Chan was a core member.
In 1985, Elton John, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, and Dionne Warwick recorded a cover of the 1982 song "That's What Friends Are For" and released it as a charity single, with some portion of the proceeds going for AIDS research and prevention.
