VisualAIDS

Web Gallery curated by Ira Sachs and Boris Torres

 

(auto)biography: the photography of Nelson Edwin Rodriguez

Curated by Ira Sachs and Boris Torres

Each 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 December / AIDS Awareness Month, Ira Sachs & Boris Torres focus on the work of Nelson Edwin Rodriguez. View WEB GALLERY here*

From the Curators' Statement:

We are struck by these pictures both for the sweetness of their imagery, and the story they begin to tell. Of Nelson Edwin Rodriguez, born in Puerto Rico in 1974, grew up in the Bronx, and died in 1996, at 22. In that short time, he starred in a movie "The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love", performed in Miami, Houston, Boston, and Manchester, UK, and made countless friends, performance videos, and photographs. His friends called him “The Counselor,” after Diana Troy, his favorite character on Star Trek. He had lovely long Barbara Streisand fingernails and he liked to dance to Bette Midler. He had incredible wit, and perfect physical timing. He loved to dress in drag, but when he went home to the Bronx, he would put on his boots and sweatshirt, and try to stay under the radar, become invisible (he learned to walk so he wouldn’t swish).  (read more)

About the Curators:
Boris Torres is a painter originally from Ecuador who grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Veneklasen/Werner Gallery in Berlin, Bowman Bloom Gallery, Parlor Projects, Art in General, Center for Book Arts, LGBT Community Center, Dumbo Arts Center, Butt Magazine, and he has an upcoming exhibition in December at La Petite Mort Gallery in Ottawa, Canada. Currently finishing an MFA at Brooklyn College, he will be teaching there in the Spring.
 
Ira Sachs is a filmmaker whose work includes the features Married Life (2007), The Delta (1997), and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning Forty Shades of Blue (2005). He is the co-founder and curator of Queer/Art/Film, a monthly series held at the IFC Center in New York. His most recent film, Last Address, is an elegy to a group of New York City artists who died of AIDS. 
   
 image: Nelson Edwin Rodriguez, untitled (self-portrait), c. 1993-1996

 

Web Gallery: Treat My Words curated by John Chaich

Treat My Words
Curated by John Chaich

View WEB GALLERY here*

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. This month, John Chaich curates the artwork of Archive Members; Stephen Andrews, Robert Blanchon, Peter Cherone, Joe DeHoyos, William Donovan, Robert Farber, Max Greenberg, Bryan Hoffman, horea, W. Benjamin Incerti, Affreka Jefferson, Frank Jump, Samuel Lewis, Steed Taylor, Frederick Weston and David Wojnarowicz.

From the Curator's Statement: As a writer and graphic designer, I am naturally drawn to using words. Yet the more I study design, the less interested I am in executing typographic perfection as I am understanding how the way words look can imply or alter what these words mean...  Typography by skill is a visual treatment of words...  Typography by philosophy is a medium of meaning... Or, according to Bringhurst, "a craft by which the meaning of a text (or the absence of meaning) can be clarified, honored and shared, or knowingly disguised." Can the same be said for the way artists work with text?  This quest for finding works that use text-and what visual treatments they employ to create meaning-guided my curatorial exploration in the through the Visual AIDS archives.  (read more)

About the Curator:
Beginning his career as an HIV testing counselor and community educator, John Chaich has designed a range of multi-arts projects to raise AIDS awareness, from an educational theatre project funded with support from Do Something and the Red Hot Organization, to a nationally distributed edutainment zine by and for young adults, to social marketing campaigns recognized by Print magazine and most recently, assisting Visual AIDS with their annual broadside campaigns. He has written on visual responses to HIV/AIDS for Art & Understanding magazine, as well as contributed to BUST magazine and the anthology, Body Outlaws: Rewriting the Rules of Beauty and Body Image.

image: Joe DeHoyos, Stay Stay Stay, 1995

Web Gallery: Obsessive Sex Collecting curated by Sarah Forbes

Obsessive Sex Collecting
Curated by Sarah Forbes

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. This month, Sarah Forbes curates the artwork of Archive Members; Barton Lidice Benes, Robert Blanchon, Curtis Carman, Jose Luis Cortes, Brent Nicholson Earle, Tony Feher, Frank Green, Michael Golden, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jerry Hooten, horea, Derek Jackson, Elliot Linwood, Gin Louie, Gregory Veney and Joel Wateres.

From the Curator's Statement:

The compulsion to collect can be related to a wide array of objects such as coins, marbles, figurines, newspapers and pieces of paper. Hoarding, the more extreme end of the collecting spectrum, has even become the focus of popular reality television shows, documenting how this compulsion can take over a person’s life. At times this drive to collect can be directly tied to someone’s sexuality and sexual identity.

While some cultural institutions briefly touch upon the theme of sex, the outright and unwavering inclusion of the topic is rare. By avoiding sex, a museum or gallery space can become a clinical and sanitized repository for a collection of works, but in this selection, the idea of the “collection” is charged through its association with sex. Overtly sexual objects, erotic art pieces, a lover’s hair or even sexual experiences can all be collected. Even the amassing of tattoos, both traditional and erotic, can be considered a process of collecting, as well as an analogous sexual experience, with someone giving and another receiving the art form... (read more)

About the Curator:
A Native New Yorker, Sarah Forbes has worked with the Museum of Sex since 2004, and has served as the museum’s sole curator since May of 2006. During her tenure at the Museum of Sex she has curated over eleven exhibitions, covering a variety of disciplines such as science, health, art, design, media, and technology. The New York Times described her most recent curatorial work with the exhibition Rubbers: the Life History and Struggle of the Condom, as “fascinating” and “extraordinary…creat[ing] a modest exhibition that elevates the status of the condom.”  Rubber is currently on exhibition until December 5, 2010. (more)

View WEB GALLERY here 

[web gallery contains adult content]

image: Jose Luis Cortes, Frankie's' Tattoos series, 2001

Web Gallery: SIDA curated by Rick Castro

SIDA
Curated by Rick Castro

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. This month, Rick Castro curates the artwork of Archive Members; Ali, Bern Boyle, Bruce Cratsley, John Dugdale, Max Greenberg, Donna Haggerty, Peter Madero III, and John Morrison.  View WEB GALLERY here*

From the Curator's Statement:
Born and raised in LA, I have lived and worked in Los Angeles my entire life. I have traveled all over the world, and even lived in NYC for a short time during the mid-80's, on 14th St & 10th Ave, directly across from the infamous VAULT and J’s. What was once a bastion of male sex is now designer label fashion ghetto.  Those were the days...  Life was exciting, sex was fun & kinky, the nightlife was incredible, and anything seemed possible...  I remember when the bomb hit.  (read more)

About the Curator:
Rick Castro is a filmmaker, photographer and curator living in Los Angeles. His work explores the world of fetish and fringes of sex culture. His photography, films and videos are in the permanent collections of The Alfred Kinsey Institute, The Tom Of Finland Foundation, and The Chicago Leather Museum. His fashion photography has appeared in Flaunt, Attitude UK, DNA and Tetu magazines.  He was also the west coast editor for Studio Magazines, publishers of Blue, B&W, Sex and Deep Blue.  In 1995, Castro and Bruce LaBruce directed Hustler White, and in 2002 he directed Plushies & Furries.  His second book13 Years of Bondage: The Photography of Rick Castro was published in 2004 by Fluxion Editions.  In 2005, Castro opened ANTEBELLUM gallery in Los Angeles. Antebellum and Rick Castro present fetish as art.  This groundbreaking gallery is considered the only fetish art gallery in America, and perhaps the world.

View WEB GALLERY here
[web gallery may contain adult content]

image: Max Greenberg, AIDS 101 – An Intensive (SIDA), 1997

Web Gallery co-curated by Guy Berbube and Francesco Corsaro

The Infidels' Hallelujah

Curated by Guy Berube and Francesco Corsaro

Every month, Visual AIDS invites guest curators, drawn from both the arts and AIDS communities, to select several works from The Archive Project. This month, Guy Berube and Francesco Corsaro curated The Infides' Hallelujah* featuring artwork by Alex Aleixo, Stephen Andrews, Raynes Birkbeck, Bob Corti, James Fackwell, Arnold Fern, Martin Freeman, Frank Green, Samuel Lewis, Elliot Linwood, Gregory Maskwa, Andrew McPhail, Frank Moore, Mark Morrisroe, James Reich, Abnel Rodriguez-Quiles, Richard Sawdon-Smith, Tracy Silverberg, Tom Shooter and David Wojnarowicz.

From the Co-curators' Statement:

In this series of chosen works, Bérubé touches on the delicate relationship between artist and dealer, a relationship that is vastly different, depending on whose point of view is considered. This is a business relationship that endeavors to achieve success by way of savvy marketing, media coverage, and buzz for a product that both parties involved hope inspires a buying public to make this public display of ideas and talent a part of their private lives. A constant force between these two parties is the sometimes conflicting interests shared by either of the two. Sales, artistic acclaim, street cred, one-upmanship and any of a number of other factors all combine to create what all involved hope will lead to a sense of fulfillment.  (read more)

About the Co-curators:
Guy Bérubé is the Owner and Director of La Petite Mort gallery in Ottawa, Ontario.  He’s vision for La Petite Mort is truly – and perhaps surprisingly, given the gallery’s name – a vision of social ethics. He sees the artist’s struggle with self-awareness through visual art reflected back to the viewer not as passive recipient but as active participant in the creative endeavour. A signature feature of LPM is the feeling of discomfort many of the artworks evoke, which, as is the goal of subversive art, reflects the viewer’s personal projections back upon herself.  This discomfort is a necessary part of Bérubé’s aesthetic and ethical sensibility. It recognizes the role of art in alienation and in critical transformation, for cultural progress is usually provoked by the ideas invoked at the boundaries of our communities. LPM artists represent subjects at the margins of contemporary Canadian urban society - the sublime as well as the homeless and the schizophrenic – no different than most mainstream art since the post-Renaissance period. Not here to shock nor to entertain, however, Bérubé as LPM gallery owner and director is here to provide an inclusive forum for today’s Canadian & international artists, including those typically sidelined by mainstream society and those simply unable to function normally within it.  He gives the Canadian visual arts community an edge that not only gives art a vehicle for its traditional cultural role, but is acknowledged for giving Canadian Art that edge that contributes to its recognition on the world stage.
 
Francesco Corsaro was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario and earned a B.A. in Fine Art History and Italian Studies at the University of Toronto. A career arts administrator, Francesco has worked for various arts organizations including The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto Artscape, and the National Arts Centre Foundation, among others. Having moved to Ottawa, Ontario, Francesco divides his time between the Bytown Museum as the Director of Development and Festival X, Ottawa Photography Festival where he is co-founder and Vice President. Francesco was also the Director of the now-defunct IPO Gallery, a gallery for emerging artists.


Visual AIDS utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving the legacy -- because AIDS IS NOT OVER!  Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to HIV prevention and AIDS awareness through producing and presenting visual art projects, 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.  www.visualAIDS.org

The Body contains a rich collection of information on topics ranging from HIV prevention, state-of-the-art treatment issues, humor and art. An invaluable resource, The Body is used by clinicians, patients and the general public. Part of The Body's mission is to enable artistic expression to reach the Web, and to join art with other resources needed to help the public comprehend the enormity and devastation of the AIDS pandemic and to experience its human and spiritual dimensions. www.TheBody.com

View WEB GALLERY here
[web gallery may contain adult content]

image: Frank Moore, Debutantes, 1992.  Courtesy of the Estate of Frank Moore

July Web Gallery curated by Wayne Northcross

Dream Makers curated by Wayne Northcross

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. This month, Wayne Northcross curates the artwork of Archive Members; David Abbott, Valerie Caris, Luis Carle, Stephen TARO Clark, Bruce Cratsley, Joe DeHoyos, Jimmy DeSana, Ken Goodman, Tim Greathouse, Michael Harwood, Michael Lee, Eduardo Miralles, Luna Luis Ortiz, Rene Santos  and Kurt Weston.  View WEB GALLERY here*

From the Curator's Statement:

My queer awakening came into focus when at 15, I chanced upon a Studio 54 blue jean advertisement in the September 1983 issue of GQ magazine. The semi-nude male model was photographed in profile as he pulls up the tight dark denim. I had never seen an image of such doggedly brazen sensuality. From that moment, the art of dressing and the art of creating desire for clothes through erotic expression have enraptured me. The work I have selected from the Visual AIDS archive made me think of my particular ah-ha moment and of the artists who were inspired by seductive dreamscapes the fashion machine produces via fashion editorial, advertising and the runway.   (read more)

About the Curator:
Wayne Northcross was born in Detroit, Mich., where he received a B.A. in Italian Language and Literature before studying law at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida. As an independent curator, Northcross has organized exhibitions for Bronx Art Space, The Bronx Museum, The Project Gallery, New York, Venetia Kapernekas Gallery, New York, the Fusebox Festival, Austin, Texas, and Bronx River Arts Center. He has written criticism and essays on gay culture for Gay City News and The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide. As a magazine editor he has contributed contemporary art and fashion editorial features for Vogue Hommes, Out and Esquire. He currently resides in New York City.

image: Michael Harwood, Marky on 57th St., 1993

Web Gallery curated by Paul Mpagi Sepuya

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. This month, Paul Mpagi Sepuya curates the artwork of Archive Members; David Abbott, Loreen Bryant, Rene Capone, Vincent Cianni, W. Benjamin Incerti, Darrell Jones, Tara Popick, Nelson Edwin Rodriguez and David Wojnarowicz. View WEB GALLERY here.

From the Curator's Statement:Browsing the Visual AIDS archive, I was drawn to several artists' works that focused on men’s representations of women and women’s representations of men. Within the archive these were rather rare to come across and I wanted to bring several examples together and think about the connection and roles that each play for and towards each other in a queer or other marginalized positions.  (read more)

About the Curator:

Paul Mpagi Sepuya is a Brooklyn-based artist working in  photography, zines, and video projects that have been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Basel, Sydney, Toronto, Paris and Berlin. His work has been featured and reviewed in BUTT, Interview, Capricious, Paper, The New York Times, among others. A monograph of his work, Beloved Object and Amorous Subject, Revisited, was published by envoy enterprises, New York in 2008. He was recently featured in the New York City exhibitions 30 Seconds Off an Inch, at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Compassion, at the Union Theological Seminary, curated by AA Bronson. Sepuya studied photography at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He will have an upcoming solo exhibition at envoy enterprises in New York City in September – October 2010 and is publishing a collaborative book project with artist Timothy Hull titled the accidental egyptian and occidental arrangements, out this summer. He was a 2009 - 2010 LMCC Workspace Artist-in-Residence and will be a summer artist-in-residence this June at the Center for Photography at Woodstock.

View WEB GALLERY here
[web gallery may contain adult content]

image: David B. Abbott, Rita, 1996

Take with Food curated by Marica Cardinale

 


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. This month, Marisa Cardinale curates the artwork of Archive Members; Joe Brainard, Valerie Caris, Jonathan Leiter, Joseph Modica, Frank Moore, Mooshka, Chuck Nanney, Eric Rhein, Frederick Weston and David Wojnarowicz.  View WEB GALLERY here.

From the Curator's Statement:
I approached my visit to the Visual AIDS archive with some trepidation but a firmly open mind. I knew I would see work by friends who had died.  When that happens by chance, maybe turning a corner at an exhibition, or catching sight of a title on the spine of a book in a store, or once on the tee-shirt of a young person walking towards me on the street, when it comes upon me without warning like that, I feel like a movie character in a time machine. Its immediately 1982 or thereabouts, the brief sliver of my adult life before anyone knew there was something we’d call AIDS. There is no more potent visceral conjuring of the sharpest memory for me than sudden encounters with the artwork of the people who are so missed.  The exact timbre of a voice, the way the city used to look, the shoes someone wore, the feeling of cellophane on a pack of cigarettes, the details that set the place and the moment, rush back to when that artwork was new. Maybe I even saw it wet in the studio, or labeled the slide, or picked it up myself and hung it up on a wall. Frankly, its just plain sad and I often avoid those situations...  (read more)

About the Curator:
Since 1995, Marisa Cardinale has been a consultant to artists and artist's estates, most notably the estate of Robert Mapplethorpe.  In the 1980s, she was Director of the Civilian Warfare Gallery and the Director of Special Events for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR). In 1990, she co-founded the Community Research Initiative on AIDS, now know as ACRIA, and remains active on the ACRIA board of directors.  She was a member of Act-Up and its Treatment and Data Committee and participated in direct action groups such as the Lesbian Avengers. She has been a board member of the LAVA dance company since 2001.

Click HERE to view WEB GALLERY

image: Frank Moore, Aquarium, 1997

Web Gallery: Marching AIDS Heroic curated by Charles Long

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. This month, Charles Long curated the current on-line exhibition which features the artwork of Archive Members; David Abbott, Michael Berube, Brent Nicholson Earle, Rubin Gonzalez, Sunil Gupta, Derek Jackson, W. Benjamin Incerti, Tim McCarron, Richard Renaldi, Christopher Trujillo, Tseng Kwong Chi, and Stephen Varble.  Visit web gallery here.

From the Curators’ Statement:
Marching AIDS Heroic: The amazing work contained within the archives is awe inspiring and a powerful living example of the contributions of the HIV+ community, not only to the art world but also to society as a whole.   As I began to comb through the seemingly endless slides contained in the archive, I attempted to clear my mind and approach it without specific intention, seeking works that called out or spoke to me.  The following selection is what came from this experiment and upon my reflection three themes have emerged - Death, Super Heroes and AIDS Activism.

Charles Long is the Director of Development and Communications for The New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN) in Brooklyn, NY.  He is "a master of nothing and a student of all."  Long is originally from Chicago but currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. He thanks all those who take the time to reflect on their actions and the world around them. (read more)

Click here to view gallery.

image: Michael Berube, Millennium Pieta, 1999

HIV Plus curates Visual AIDS Web Gallery

Salute curated by HIV Plus

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. This month, the folks over at HIV Plus curated the current on-line exhibition which features the artwork of Archive Members; Eric Stephen Abrams, Barton Lidice Benes, Robert Blanchon, Rene Capone, Luis Carle, Gregg Cassin, Keith Haring, Jerry Hotten, Derek Jackson, John Lathram, Joyce McDonald, Frank Moore, Hunter Reynolds, Eric Rhein, Richard Sawdon Smith, Steed Taylor, George Towne, Christopher Trujillo, Albert Velasco .  The artwork is also features in the November/December issue of HIV Plus.

HIV Plus Statement:
In recognition of the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day and the corresponding Day With(out) Art, HIV Plus magazine wanted to honor the visionaries who’ve brought -- and those who continue to bring -- beauty to our world. We’ve collaborated with the organization Visual AIDS to curate this special anniversary exhibit, which we call Salute.  The 20 works we selected represent a wide range of artistic forms -- paintings, drawings, sculpture, posters, photography, collages, and mixed media. This variety is a mirror of the vast diversity of the pandemic and of the people affected by HIV -- men, women, and children; mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons; gays, straights, and bisexuals; the old and the young; the rich and the poor; and people of all colors and ethnicities....But all of the pieces are poignant lessons on what it truly means -- on a personal and individual level -- to be living with or affected by HIV.

HIV Plus is dedicated to helping our readers lead their fullest life possible by giving them tips, tools, and personal stories that motivate them to make the best of their friendships and relationships, work and leisure time, health care, and overall sense of well-being.  By helping our readers seek out their most rewarding and fulfilling experiences and to improve their outlook in everything they do -- to live out their lives above and beyond being HIV-positive -- they get the holistic effect of HIV Plus's Health+Spirit+Culture+Life focus. Please check out the November/December issue of HIV Plus for an additional story on Visual AIDS titled “Art for Everyone, Art Forever” by Benjamin Ryan.

Visit Visual AIDS Web Gallery here.

image: Frank Moore, Spring, 1996