NYAB Event - "ACT UP NEW YORK: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987 - 1993" Exhibition

"ACT UP NEW YORK: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987 - 1993" Exhibition

White Columns

This event has ended.

White Columns presents ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987–1993; a multi-faceted exhibition incorporating the ACT UP ORAL HISTORY PROJECT; and a new installation by fierce pussy.

Curated by Helen Molesworth and Claire Grace and organized by the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts and the Harvard Art Museums ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987–1993 was originally presented in fall 2009 at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University. In the introduction to that presentation Molesworth and Grace outlined the exhibition’s remit:
“The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was pivotal for AIDS activism in New York City in the late 1980s. Tracing the history of the movement, this exhibition examines the printed graphics and other visual media created by artist collectives that populated it, including Gran Fury, Silence = Death Project, Gang, DIVA TV, and fierce pussy. The exhibition also premieres the ACT UP Oral History Project, a suite of over 100 video interviews with surviving members of ACT UP New York that offer a portal to a decisive moment in the history of the gay-rights movement, twentieth-century visual art, our nation’s discussion of universal healthcare, and the continuing HIV/AIDS epidemic.”

Molesworth and Grace address the climate and context for ACT UP whose: “… demonstrations in the late 1980s and early 1990s reflected the group’s outrage against a governing establishment that ignored HIV/AIDS as a national health crisis; that failed to secure funding for medical research, treatment, and education; that profited from inflated costs for therapeutic drugs; and that perpetuated homophobic misrepresentations of HIV and AIDS.” Molesworth and Grace portray the exhibition as an opportunity “… to reinvigorate a debate around the realities of HIV/AIDS today, and about the links between visual art, political activism, health, and human rights.” White Columns, like many other New York-based cultural organizations during this period was an active partner with ACT UP and other activist groups of that era, and we hope that the re-presentation of ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987–1993 at White Columns will offer an occasion to consider the ongoing role alternative arts organizations continue to play in defining the cultural politics of their time.

The ACT UP Oral History Project has been developed and produced by Sarah Schulman and Jim Hubbard and presents more than 100 filmed interviews with surviving members of ACT UP New York from 2001 to the present. A recently expanded and updated version of the Oral History Project will be presented in the main gallery space at White Columns. The Oral History Project reveals intimate and idiosyncratic portraits of the diverse coalition of individuals associated with ACT UP, whilst simultaneously underscoring the collaborative and accumulative narrative behind the group’s work and legacy. More information about the Project, including full transcripts of the interviews, can be found at: www.actuporalhistory.org.

White Columns’ three other gallery spaces will feature displays of the now iconic visual media associated with ACT UP and AIDS activism from this period. Talking about this material – which includes posters, stickers, handbills, t-shirts, videos, etc. – Molesworth and Grace have said: “Working closely with ACT UP, artist collectives such as Gran Fury, Silence = Death Project, Gang, and fierce pussy formed to deploy guerilla marketing techniques to disseminate ACT UP’s messages to a mass audience, effectively exploiting the power of art to help put an end to the AIDS crisis.”

Following on from their four separate installations at Harvard University (including both the women and men’s restrooms at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum the women’s restrooms at the Carpenter Center and the lobby of Gund Hall at the Graduate School of Design), White Columns has commissioned fierce pussy to create a new installation in our lobby that will run in parallel with the historical and archival material in the exhibition.

For more information on ACT UP please visit their website at www.actupny.org.

Media

• Installation
• Video installation

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