LGBT History Month: John Giorno for Visual AIDS

In 1993, gay poet and performance artist John Giorno (previously here), created two broadside projects for Visual AIDS reflecting on our loss and the way we treat others.

For those of us who lived through the AIDS years, it is very difficult to explain the kind of anxiety and tension we lived with, not to mention the grief. And I can't help but reflect back on those times and have a bit of a PTSD reaction during this current pandemic. There are a lot of psychological similarities.

Visual AIDS Statement of Values

Founded in 1988, Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to raising AIDS awareness and creating dialogue around HIV issues today, by producing and presenting visual art projects, exhibitions, public forums and publications - while assisting artists living with HIV/AIDS. We are committed to preserving and honoring the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement. We embrace diversity and difference in our staff, leadership, artists and audiences. In the fight against AIDS, we believe: Effective AIDS advocacy seeks to address the underlying and related issues that contribute to and exacerbate the pandemic, such as poverty, homophobia and racism. Our work affirms the visibility, dignity and rights of people living with HIV and AIDS. HIV/AIDS prevention is about harm reduction that is guided by science, not ideology. We draw from the deep history of art activism, as with our Red Ribbon Project and Day With(out) Art. Visual AIDS promotes art that is public, inclusive and accessible. Art that takes risks promotes and encourages reflection, dialogue and action.

Art is our weapon of choice.

https://www.facebook.com/johngiorno

https://visualaids.org/

In 1993:

• President Clinton establishes the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP).
• World-renowned ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev dies of AIDS-related illness on January 6, and tennis star Arthur Ashe dies on February 3.
• The film “Philadelphia” starring Tom Hanks as a lawyer with AIDS, opens in theaters. Based on a true story, it is the first major Hollywood film on AIDS.
• Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s play about AIDS, wins the Tony Award for Best Play and the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
• In June, the U.S. Congress enacts the NIH (National Institutes of Health) Revitalization Act, giving the Office of AIDS Research primary oversight of all NIH AIDS research. The Act requires NIH and other research agencies to expand involvement of women and minorities in all research.
• On December 18, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expand the case definition of AIDS, declaring those with CD4 counts below 200 to have AIDS.

BEAUTY: Clothing--JW Anderson

Fashion journalist Sarah Mower wrote beautifully, better than I can reinterpret or explain, of JW Anderson's FW 2020-2021 collection at Paris Fashion Week:

Show anyone a pictogram of a house on fire, and it will bring Greta Thunberg’s verbal metaphor urging climate action to mind. But—look closely—the images that are printed, scorchlike, on Jonathan Anderson’s sweaters in the background of this show date from an earlier emergency. They’re prints of the burning-house stencils that the AIDS activist and mixed-media artist David Wojnarowicz sprayed on derelict East Village buildings in 1982.

Anderson is adept at bringing almost forgotten art to the ambiance of his shows—both for his own label and at Loewe. But this rediscovery struck a deeper chord for the generations protesting against establishment intransigence in the face of apocalyptic crisis. It resonated tangentially in Anderson’s remark at the end of the show. Amid the anguish of the AIDS fatalities in the ’80s and ’90s—which Wojnarowicz documented, fought, and eventually succumbed to—“it felt like the end of the world,” Anderson observed. “But it wasn’t. As much as some of it’s really heavy, there’s an optimism. There will be a solution.”

When science and political will are galvanized by grassroots forces, perhaps there can be progress. Maybe that’s the learning, the hope Anderson was getting at. In any case it puts him in line with the search for some kind of spiritual solace, a yearning toward the things that matter, that’s been playing throughout the men’s shows—that and a sharper focus on editing clothes down to a brand’s essential values. (Check Prada, Gucci, and Off-White as recent examples.)

For JW Anderson, as for so many others, it entails looking back and being extra careful about going forward: “Thinking before you speak. Thinking before you act. Following up on things. Making product that is substantial, so it looks like it’s been there forever,” as he put it. In practical terms it meant striking a balance between blanket-wrap poncho-like coats—British trad and monklike, by turns—and expanding the vocabulary of nonbinary design that Anderson was first to explore with his early menswear shows in London.

There were the long, narrow shifts in paisley print carried over from his women’s collections, pleated peplum tops over shorts, skinny knits, and hefty padded coats. With that sure hand he has for eye-catching, Instagrammable branding, he accessorized with heavy gilt chains swathed as belts, blown up as shoe jewelry, and minimized as sewn-on half-necklaces. The JW Anderson anchor-like logo that he invented as a 23-year-old was stenciled into a felted tote bag and worked into a patchwork sweater.

Trying to do better in the wider world while still defending one’s own corner of the market is the dilemma that faces all fashion designers today. Anderson mentioned in passing that he’d worked to source fabrics in Britain—such efforts support heritage manufacturing and local workers and thereby enable more conscious purchasing.

That’s a field that is going to take time to illuminate. Nevertheless, as the gay-rights movement is continuing to prove, change can come. Short term, Anderson is putting his activism where his mouth is by selling Wojnarowicz Burning House sweaters online today, raising funds for Visual AIDS, a community organization founded in 1988 to raise awareness and support for HIV-positive artists.

https://www.jwanderson.com

Happy Birthday, Keith!

Keith Haring was born on May 4,1958. As part of the growing downtown art scene in Manhattan in the early 80s (he hung out with the also-up-and-coming Jean-Michel Basquiat and Basquiat's then-girlfriend, an ambitious wanna-be singer by the name of Madonna), Haring developed his own unique "graffiti" style of art. He started with quick sketches in the New York subway on blank black advertising niches (I spent the summer of 1982 in Manhattan and I clearly recall seeing his white chalk drawings on that matte black paper in the subway), and ended up a world-renowned and important artist. The hallmark of his work is large, graphic images outlined in thick black lines, bursting with energy, life, and joy. Often his figures are shown with radiating lines or "movement lines" as in comic books.

He painted on paper, canvas, walls, buildings, objects, Grace Jones, even on himself. His iconic active figures have been transformed into sculptures located around the globe. Haring, openly and proudly gay, was an activist and a very political painter. His subject matter often covered topics such as anti-apartheid, greed and consumerism, the darkness of and harm caused by organized religion, sexuality, and ultimately, AIDS. Haring was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988.

He died on February 16, 1990 at the too-young age of 31.

His art and legacy live on. The Keith Haring Foundation is still in operation. According to their mission statement, "The Keith Haring Foundation makes grants to not-for-profit groups that engage in charitable and educational activities. In accordance with Keith’s wishes, the Foundation concentrates its giving in two areas: The support of organizations which provide educational opportunities to underprivileged children and the support of organizations which engage in education, prevention and care with respect to AIDS and HIV infection."

Thanks for the art, and for making the world a little better.
Happy birthday, Keith.

Above and below: Haring drawing in the NYC subway.

Above: Keith painted the room and himself. Photo by Annie Liebovitz.

Above: Haring mural at Houston and Bowery, New York.

Above: his powerful work for ACT-UP.

Above" "The Radiant Baby" became an iconic symbol for Haring.

http://www.haring.com/