Pilot Light: Debates and exchanges on contemporary art, artist talks and decoding societal issues

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Artist talks with artists in residence:
Mehdi A. and Anna-Katharina Scheidegger
Lille, Maison Folie Moulins
16.02 at 18h30

The discovery of art work is always exciting. Come meet the artists Anna-Katharina Scheidegger –in residence at the Hôpital St Vincent de Paul in Lille- and Mehdi A – at the Maison Folie Moulins. A friendly and open exchange, this talk allows children and adult to speak to the artists.

Free entry

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Screening and debate about the film Les témoins by André Téchiné
In partnership with Inserm
Lille, Cinéma associatif de quartier « L’Univers »
23.02 at 10h

After the screening of the film, Christian Dherbomez (Hôpital Dron, Tourcoing) will discuss AIDS issues with students.

Free entry

(Reservations: 03 28 65 84 20)

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Debate: « AIDS and prejudice »
In partnership with le Nouveau Planning Familial de Lille.
Tourcoing, Hospice d’Havré
23.02 at 14h30

This event is specifically targeting towards collégiens (4ème et 3ème).

Speakers:
Christian Dherbomez, cadre de santé à l’Hôpital Dron, Tourcoing
Véronique Séhier, Directrice du Nouveau Planning Familial
Pasquine Saule, Nouveau Planning Familial

Free entry (Reservations 03 28 65 84 20)

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Screening and debate around the film Les témoins by André Téchiné
In partnership with Inserm
Lille, Cinéma associatif de quartier « L’Univers »
23.02 at 20h

After the screening of the film, Yazdan Yazdanpanah (Chef du Service Universitaire Régional des Maladies Infectieuses et du Voyageur, Hôpital Dron de Tourcoing) will speak about AIDS issues with the audience.

Free entry (Reservations 03 28 65 84 20)

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A lunch visit for teachers
Lille, Espace Le Carré
24.02 at 12h30
Bring your picnic and we will provide drinks and coffee!

Free entry (Reservations 03 28 65 84 20)

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Table ronde : « Qu’est ce qu’être séropositif aujourd’hui ? »
In partnership with Inserm
Lille, Lycée Montebello
04.03 at 18h

Because prejudices still persist and the daily life of an HIV patient is still difficult, this discussion between the public and professionals will discuss AIDS from other points of view.

Speakers:

Professor Yazdan Yazdanpanah, Chef du Service Universitaire Régional des Maladies Infectieuses et du Voyageur, Hôpital Dron de Tourcoing
Sabine Pretre, social worker
Madame Serhani, psychologist (to be confirmed)
Han Nefkens, President of the ArtAids Foundation
Moderator : Paul Becquart, scientific journalist, Dr ès sciences de la vie et de la santé

Free entry

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Conference : « Caravage in New York, contemporary art in the AIDS era»
Tourcoing, Ecole Régionale d’Expression Plastique (ERSEP)
05.03 at 10h30

Speaker : Philippe Baryga, doctoral student l’Université de Valenciennes

Free entry

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Video night
Tourcoing, Fresnoy, Studio National des Art Contemporains
22.03 at 19h

As part of the exhibition Bill Viola / Thierry Kuntzel : Deux éternités proches, présentée au Fresnoy du 27.02 au 25.04.2010.
A selection of videos by French and interational artists about AIDS, tolerance, and behavior towards others.

Artists presented :
Valérie Mréjen
Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Free entry

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Presentation : « Media and AIDS: Looking at our society »
In partnership with the association AIDES
Dunkerque, Ecole Régionale des Beaux-Arts (ERBA)
23.03.2010 at 18h
How can we speak about a subject that is still taboo in our society? A specialist will decode the way in which AIDS is handled in the media, from television commercials to poster campaigns by the association AIDES.

Free entry

Mehdi A.
Transfert, 2009
Production of the FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque

The work of Mehdi A. is centered around meetings and connections. His performances reflect daily life, revealing small details previously unseen, and perhaps adding a bit of magic to it. The installation Transfert is being built gradually, following the path of the public, the residents, the people in transit across the neighborhoods of Lille. The links between these people are plaster casts placed on different parts of their body, chosen by the artist. Show romanizationThis creative process is essential to the work, because each participant supplements it with his or her individual trace. The artist then places the casts on a banquet table, creating a decomposed and protean body, as well as delivering a portrait of the city and life around us. During the exhibition, each visitor is invited to take chalk and write on the green walls of the installation, or equally to erase others messages, leaving their own traces such as those of the cast.

Rirkrit Tiravanija
Untitled 2007 (mussels corner) (live), 2007
Performed by Pattara Chanruechachai
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris

Rirkrit Tiravanija’s work is centered around moments of exchange. In his food performances, the artist cooks for the viewers, and everyone in attendance enjoys a free meal, allowing for a shared experience and opportunity for dialogue. For Pilot Light, an exhibition with French and Thai artists, we wanted to do a food performance in order to better connect the community of northern France with Thai culture. With two such different cultures- generally, as well as in their level of public concern towards HIV/AIDS- it’s important to strengthen engagement with the public, especially the youth culture. An artist such as Rirkrit Tiravanija, who is a familiar and influential figure to both audiences, can make a difference in how the French public can connect to the work and to Thai culture, making it less exotic and more accessible. A food performance is a simple way of reaching out, an artwork which anyone can understand, regardless of their language. In this specific performance, mussels- a typical dish of Northern France- were cooked with Thai spices and Northern French beer, combining the two cultures in one meal.

Photos & video: Vincent Maquaire. ©www.maquaire.eu

In cooperation with the FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais and the ArtAids Foundation, Espace le Carré, Maison Folie Moulins, Lycée Européen Montebello, Cinéma associatif de quartier l’Univers, Hôpital Saint Vincent de Paul (Lille) and Hôpital Gustave Dron (Tourcoing) will offer an international approach which is closely linked to the onset of AIDS in the 80s, as well as creations by contemporary Thai artists. This presentation will be enriched by productions by two artists Mehdi A. (France) and Anna Katharina Scheidegger (Switzerland) in residence at the Maison Folie de Moulins and Hôpital Saint Vincent de Paul.

Pilot Light
February 4-March 21, 2010

Opening
Thursday February 4, 2010
Espace Le Carré, Lille > 6:30 pm
Maison Folie de Moulins, Lille > 8pm
With a performance by Rirkrit Tiravanija

Artists
General Idea
Nan Goldin
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Gran Fury
Peter Hujar
Derek Jarman,
Michel Journiac,
Robert Mapplethorpe
David Wojnarowicz (with James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook)

Mehdi A.
Anna Katharina Scheidegger

Kamol Phaosavasdi
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Sutee Kunavichayanont
Patiroop Chychookiat

Edition Access for All (Leandro Erlich, General Idea, Jef Geys, Shirin
Neshat, Kamol Phaosovasdi, Shirana Shahbazi, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Rirkrit
Tiravanija, Lawrence Weiner, Sue Williams)

Illustrated top :

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled, 1991, C-print jigsaw puzzle in plastic bag, 19,5 x 24,5 cm. Coll. De Pont, Tilburg (long term loan H+F Collection) © The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Photo Peter Cox

Pilot Light
February 4-March 21, 2010

Opening
Thursday February 4, 2010
Espace Le Carré, Lille > 6:30 pm
Maison Folie de Moulins, Lille > 8pm
With a performance by Rirkrit Tiravanija

After Thailand in 2008, and then Spain in 2009, the ARTAIDS Foundation worked in close collaboration with the FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais to present the event Pilot Light in February 2010 in France, and more specifically, in the Lille metropolitan area. Multiple social and cultural partners will be associated with this project around the theme of AIDS, activism and tolerance, representing different cultures and eras.
Espace le Carré, Maison Folie Moulins, Lycée Européen Montebello, Cinéma associatif de quartier l’Univers, Hôpital Saint Vincent de Paul (Lille) and Hôpital Gustave Dron (Tourcoing) will offer an international approach which is closely linked to the onset of AIDS in the 80s, as well as creations by contemporary Thai artists.This presentation will be enriched by productions by two artists Mehdi A. (France) and Anna Katharina Scheidegger (Switzerland) in residence at the Maison Folie de Moulins and Hospital Saint Vincent de Paul.
A number of public programs will allow for exchange and dialogue through screenings, discussions and conferences, in the presence of the professionals from the medical, cultural and community sectors.

The exhibition Pilot Light hopes to offer the public a rich experience, at once informative and artistic, and to inspire reflection on the issue of AIDS as a current problem in today’s global society.

*The title Pilot Light refers to the small gas flame that is constantly kept alight in order to act as a source for a more powerful gas burner. A pilot light thus becomes a metaphor for an eternal, origin source; you cannot get a fire going without it.

This event is supported by Caisse d’Epargne Nord France Europe.

Curator: Lumi Tan

For more information please contact:
FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais
930 avenue de Rosendaël – 59240 Dunkerque
T : 03 28 65 84 20 – info@fracnpdc.fr – www.fracnpdc.fr
Press contact : Chantal Athané-Poizot (c-athane@fracnpdc.fr)

Artists
General Idea
Nan Goldin
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Gran Fury
Peter Hujar
Derek Jarman,
Michel Journiac,
Robert Mapplethorpe
David Wojnarowicz (with James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook)

Mehdi A.
Anna Katharina Scheidegger

Kamol Phaosavasdi
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Sutee Kunavichayanont
Patiroop Chychookiat

Edition Access for All (Leandro Erlich, General Idea, Jef Geys, Shirin
Neshat, Kamol Phaosovasdi, Shirana Shahbazi, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Rirkrit
Tiravanija, Lawrence Weiner, Sue Williams)

Exhibitions:

Espace le Carré, Lille
4 February  > 21 March 2010
Artists : General Idea, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Gran Fury, Peter Hujar, Derek Jarman, Michel Journiac, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz (with James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook)
Address : Angle rue des Archives/rue de la Halle – 59 000 Lille
tél : 03 28 04 83 92

Maison Folie de moulins, Lille
4 February > 14 March 2010
Artists: Kamol Phaosavasdi, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Sutee
Kunavichayanont, Mehdi A., Anna Katharina Scheidegger
Address : 47/49 rue d’Arras – 59 000 Lille
tél : 03 20 95 08 82 – email : accueilmfm@mairie-lille.fr

Lycée européen montebello, Lille
23 February > 21 March 2010
Artists: Patiroop Chychookiat, General idea
Address : 196 Boulevard Montebello – 59 000 Lille
tél : 03 20 63 33 33

Cinéma associatif de quartier l’Univers, Lille
4 February > 26 February 2010
Artists: Access for All edition: Leandro Erlich, General idea, Jef Geys, Shirin Neshat, Kamol Phaosovasdi, Shirana Shahbazi, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Lawrence Weiner, Sue Williams
Address : 16 rue Georges Danton – 59 000 Lille Moulins
tél : 03 20 52 73 48 – email : info@lunivers.org

Hôpital saint Vincent de Paul (Groupe Hospitalier de
l’institut Catholique de Lille), Lille
4 February > 4 March 2010
Artist:  Anna Katharina Scheidegger
Address : Boulevard Belfort, BP 387 – 59 020 Lille Cedex
tél : 03 20 87 48 48

Centre Hospitalier Gustave Dron, Tourcoing
Service des maladies infectieuses et du Voyageur
4 February > 21 March 2010
Artists : Access for All edition: Leandro Erlich, General Idea, Jef Geys, Shirin Neshat, Kamol Phaosovasdi, Shirana Shahbazi, Manit Sriwanichpoom, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Lawrence Weiner, Sue Williams
Address : 155, rue du Président Coty, BP 619 – 59 208 Tourcoing Cedex
tél : 03 20 69 49 49

Illustrated top :

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled, 1991, C-print jigsaw puzzle in plastic bag, 19,5 x 24,5 cm. Coll. De Pont, Tilburg (long term loan H+F Collection) © The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Photo Peter Cox

Lumi Tan

Pilot Light

Although this exhibition brings together a number of public figures, most of whom are no longer with us, it cannot be separated from the personal dimension. Allow me to introduce myself as a straight woman who was born in an American suburb the same year that AIDS was first reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, a place as culturally far-removed as possible from the East Village artistic scene flourishing in New York City at that time. Like the majority of Americans, I was introduced to the AIDS epidemic not by the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Wojnarowicz or Nan Goldin, but by landmark events such as the first display of the already massive AIDS Memorial Quilt in Washington D.C. in 1987, the death of Ryan White, a teenage hemophiliac who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion and had become the face of “innocent” AIDS victims in 1990, and the seepage of AIDS awareness into popular culture. It suddenly seemed that HIV-positive characters were on television sitcoms, annual AIDS fundraising walks were commonplace and to-the-point songs like Salt-n-Pepa’s 1990 “Let’s Talk about Sex” (subsequently rerecorded as “Let’s Talk about AIDS”) were huge hits. The red AIDS ribbon was ubiquitous on celebrities, worn at award shows and other televised events to broadcast their awareness to millions of viewers at home.

These landmarks were all imperative to my adolescent self, coming to understand the place of HIV/AIDS in American culture. Far past the point where the epidemic was automatically (and now shockingly) called GRIDS (gay-related immune deficiency syndrome), Gay Plague or Gay Cancer in 1982, HIV/AIDS became a key trend in popular culture. And as it became an unavoidable crisis that went far beyond the boundaries of the gay male population, these actions, though quite normal at the time, were absolutely revolutionary. No single cause has since permeated popular consciousness in the way that moment did in the early 1990s; the severity of the AIDS crisis required then (and still requires now) a range of different mass-media strategies.

But what I, and arguably the majority of the general public, did not realize was that this acceptance was preceded by the visual culture of the artists in Pilot Light, who accessed culture through strategies that went beyond traditional “fine art”. I can use myself as a primary example: as a child I was enchanted by Keith Haring’s art and was thrilled to discover his Pop Shop in New York City, a store where he sold T-shirts, pins, household items, and toys with his art printed on them. This was a natural extension of his graffiti, which could be seen and processed by any passerby before being absorbed into the museum system with special commissions and market value. Though often criticized by the art world, this ultimate level of accessibility to art was incredibly prescient of the contemporary situation in which many art stars will collaborate with fashion or design companies to produce objects. I had no idea that Haring had died from AIDS complications in 1990, having announced his diagnosis in Rolling Stone magazine only a year before; I only could see that his work had an easy, almost giddy appeal and promoted ideas of love, joy and acceptance. These were basic things for a kid like me, but it resonated through the cynical art world and beyond. I would consider my generation as the first to really grow up with AIDS as a fact of life, an unavoidable reality, instead of the social, cultural and political struggle which preceded it.

These borders between the personal, public and political are at the heart of the work in Pilot Light. When AIDS began affecting the art community in New York (where by 1983, 45% of AIDS cases in the United States had occurred), not only was political and experimental art in general being censored by the newly inaugurated Ronald Reagan administration, but protection of the homosexual community was also being threatened. In response to the 1986 Supreme Court case Bowers vs. Harwick, which allowed states to punish homosexual acts as a felony, Felix Gonzalez-Torres wrote:

“When we start analyzing Supreme Court decisions and public legislation that relate to the body, we start realizing that what we regard as the ‘private’ sphere has never been private. It has always been public. One of the Justices said he thought it [the verdict] wasn’t a big deal when he was asked about it. Never mind that the lives of millions of people were affected by that decision. We cannot get any kind of rights now because in the books it’s legal to criminalize the way we express love.”[i]

Derek Jarman, reflecting on his experience of living as a homosexual in the United Kingdom in his 1993 memoir At Your Own Risk: A Saint’s Testament, neatly summed up:

“For the first twenty-five years of my life I lived as a criminal, and the next twenty-five were spent as a second-class citizen, deprived of equality and human rights. No right to adopt children, and if I had children I could be declared an unfit parent; illegal in the military; an age of consent of twenty-one; no right of inheritance; no right of access to a loved one; no right to public affection; no right to an unbiased education; no legal sanction of my relationships and no right to marry. These restrictions subtly deprived me of my freedom. It seemed unthinkable it could be any other way, so we all accepted this.”[ii]

AIDS brought many of these issues to the forefront; lifelong partners who were unable to attend hospital bedsides or who were deprived of legal rights to shared possessions were again punished. Issues that heterosexual married couples would never need to consider now became overt and oppressive at a critical and tragic time. After the initial victories of the gay rights movement in the previous decades, AIDS heightened a sense of mobilization in the gay community to push back against government forces which wanted to control their private lives.

The AIDS crisis necessitated the mediation of art in a previously unknown way. The dramatic effects could be seen on the most basic community level in concentrated art centers such as New York. The 1989 exhibition at Artists Space in New York, part of the first national “Day Without Art” organized by non-profit Visual Aids and curated by Nan Goldin, was pointedly titled “Witnesses: Against Our Disappearance”. Goldin uses the inclusive “our” to denote that beyond the artists in the exhibition, we as a public are all in the crisis together, and only through acceptance of this could the epidemic be stopped. Through their own experience, artists with AIDS were also empowered with the unique ability to control their own public image. The fame of artists with AIDS was necessary and imperative to speak for the thousands, then millions, of voices that were unable to speak at this time. The media rarely paid attention to the anonymous intravenous drug users, prostitutes or Haitians who were among the first groups affected, but they did listen to Rock Hudson, Freddie Mercury, Rudolf Nureyev and Robert Mapplethorpe. Artists have the privileged position of being able to influence, long after their deaths, how AIDS patients are seen in the media and popular culture. Yet there was an implicit understanding that this was just the beginning, a means to an end; a 1991 piece from the collaborative Gran Fury: The Artists’ Response exhibition catalogue at Ohio State University states “With 47,524 dead, art is not enough. Our culture gives artists permission to name oppression, a permission denied to those oppressed. Outside the pages of this catalogue, permission is being seized by many communities to save their own lives. We urge you to take collective action to end the AIDS crisis.”[iii]

The delayed reaction to the epidemic can be attributed largely to that fact that it appeared to “punish” unwanted, dispensable minorities: homosexuals, intravenous drug users, prostitutes, and Haitians. Only when AIDS started to become a threat to the general – and “innocent” – society mainly through hemophiliacs, did it become a greater cause for concern. The introduction of everyday materials to represent AIDS moved the epidemic away from the predatory threat, and created a “safe” and “comforting” way of understanding the disease. This incredibly effective strategy can be seen in the NAMES Project Foundation’s AIDS Memorial Quilt, which since 1987 has collected over 40,000 individual panels from thirty countries, making it the largest community art project in the world. The use of a quilt is the ultimate metaphor: quilts are wholesome and steeped in tradition, an activity associated with maternal figures, as well as linked to collectivity. It allows for a diverse use of materials – some of those listed on the website include Barbie dolls, condoms, cookies, cremation ashes, jeans, love letters, and cowboy boots – which promotes an individualized ability to represent loved ones through whatever objects or ephemera are deemed fit. At the moment of the quilt’s inception, AIDS needed to be distanced as much as possible from “risky” behavior – namely, sex and drugs – and a quilt as a tactile symbol of deaths from AIDS had an undeniable impact on the way the virus was regarded. One can see this as a compromise, undermining or even trivializing the severity of the epidemic, but it can also be seen as victims taking agency and subverting the image of the epidemic. Gonzalez-Torres wrote:

“Two clocks side by side are much more threatening to the powers that be than an image of two guys sucking each other’s dicks, because they cannot use me as a rallying point in their battle to erase meaning. It is going to be very difficult for members of Congress to tell their constituents that money is being expended for the promotion of homosexual art when all they have to show are two plugs side by side, or two mirrors side by side, or two light bulbs side by side.”[iv]

When the prevailing cultural belief is that homosexual love is dangerous, dirty, perverse, and now deadly, Gonzalez-Torres’s choice of materials like these, seen in homes and offices or readily available in the corner store, effectively combated the stereotypes of gay love without sacrificing political content. Walking through a beaded curtain, unwrapping and eating a candy, and rolling up a poster all became political acts through these artists’ work; these minor, concrete materials stood in for the grand concepts of death, love, sex and memory.

For those being overwhelmed by the devastation of AIDS, however, subtlety was not an option. For an activist group such as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), set up in New York City in 1987 and quickly followed by international chapters, one of the most notable, impressive and important communication strategies was borrowed from the language and visual culture of advertising and mass media. The “Silence=Death” logo was both esthetically and linguistically clear, clean and to the point. So much misinformation about the epidemic had been spread by 1987 that these strategies were not only refreshing but also imperative. Gran Fury, an artist collaborative which spun off from ACT UP in 1988, created posters which brought together powerful graphics with stark facts about the forces that were affecting the pace at which AIDS was being considered a deadly epidemic: pharmaceutical companies, racism, the media, government inaction, and religion. Gran Fury’s posters were wheatpasted on the streets of New York, shown on bus shelters and subway platforms in major cities around the world, and featured in traditional art exhibitions such as the 1990 Venice Biennale. Group Material, another New York-based artist collaborative which included Gonzalez-Torres, was set up to respond not just to AIDS, but to social issues in general; it created a site-specific AIDS timeline (1989-1991) to chart the social, cultural, and political events which shaped the development of the AIDS crisis in America. For each year, advertisements, quotes, art works and ephemera from popular culture were brought together to help shape the story of AIDS; each year ended with the somber tallies of new cases, total cases and deaths to date. By making each version site specific, it responded to each community, including local organizations and artists to integrate their present and individual needs. By the timeline’s final incarnation at the 1991 Whitney Biennial, it represented twelve years of the virus’s growth, taking over the entire first-floor lobby.

By focusing on disseminating information, these artists played a role that the government or other public agencies were unwilling to fulfill, and used strategies to spread the message as far and wide as possible. General Idea’s Imagevirus works (1989-1991) documented how their 1987 AIDS logo, itself based on Robert Indiana’s immediately recognizable 1966 LOVE painting, was displayed in very public spaces such as the exterior of Amsterdam subway cars, the Jumbotron in Times Square, and in Hamburg’s city center. It is not hard to see the relationship between the repetition of an image, poster, or fact around the world and the virus itself; exposure and knowledge were equated to help destigmatize and inform. The public does not search for this information; it becomes inescapable, and refuses to privilege the educated, the rich, or the healthy. AA Bronson said “We want to make the word AIDS normal. AIDS is sort of playing the part that cancer did in the sixties. By keeping the word visible, it has a normalizing affect that will hopefully play a part in normalizing people’s relationship to the disease – to make it something that can be dealt with as a disease rather than a set of moral or ethical issues.”[v] Fear, stigma, and segregation all take root in the lack of knowledge; in a scramble for the facts about this new virus, panic too often replaces tolerance.

Although photography played a major role in introducing AIDS, it was also undeniably problematic. Showing the physically devastating results may only add to the public’s phobia: a 1988 MoMA exhibition of Nicholas Nixon’s portraits of people dying from AIDS was heavily criticized for showing them only as helpless, lonely victims. It is a different matter, however, when the subjects are able to represent themselves, rather than being represented by someone else. Robert Mapplethorpe’s 1988 self-portrait, two years after being diagnosed with AIDS and one year before his death, does not capture shocking weight loss or lesions, but reflects the gravity of the acceptance of one’s death, amplified by the skull cane which appears alongside him. Photography’s intrinsic relationship to death, as an indexical medium as well as a souvenir of the past, lends itself to an epidemic as quick and brutal as AIDS. But at this time, photography was also an essential record of a community which was in danger of dying off. Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar, and David Wojnarowicz are seen repeatedly in each other’s work as lovers, friends, and mentors; Mapplethorpe was photographed by Hujar and was clearly heavily influenced by his formalist style. Through Nan Goldin’s relentless documentation of her friends and acquaintances, a work such as The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1981-1993), a slideshow of hundreds of images, creates an ambient, cyclical and flickering document of lives and deaths, the hectic moments of excitement and the quiet moments of solemnity. There was a twofold fear of being forgotten at this time: as an AIDS patient, ignored by the press and government; and simply as a human being, capturing moments one didn’t want to leave behind. Hujar was known for giving his subjects – artists, musicians, writers, as well as dogs and city landscapes – a certain respect, a regal quality which highlighted their singularity even if they were considered outsiders on the fringes of society. Working exclusively in black and white, the portraits lent their subjects an air of timelessness; Candy Darling on her deathbed, made up to look as flawless as ever in 1974, could easily be a 1940s movie star. Goldin and Hujar’s works are perfect exercises in oppositional styles, contributing to the need for a more complete story of that time.

Whereas these photographers were known for their stark, representational images, in which subjects appeared more or less as they were, Derek Jarman made films filled with references to history and literature, and created multilayered images of ambiguity. Though he made only one film directly related to AIDS, 1993’s landmark Blue, in which he gives a 79-minute narration of going blind from AIDS-related infections over a blue screen, he was one of the United Kingdom’s most vocal gay rights and AIDS activists. He wrote, regarding the beginnings of the AIDS crisis, “There was a confusion in which we acted responsibly. All our energy was spent looking after friends and raising money. It was we who provided you with the information that may have saved your life.”[vi] This acknowledged that it was homosexuals, those most at risk, who were necessarily the best educated about AIDS as each fact become available. Instead of being represented as a threat, the ones who brought AIDS upon the general population, he articulates that the gay community was invaluable to society at large. His memoir, At Your Own Risk, was both a celebration of gay sexuality and a condemnation of the British treatment of homosexuals, which reached a crucial crossroads at the AIDS crisis; Jarman’s career was dedicated to showing homosexuality in a positive and complex way. Sebastiane (1976) was one of the first films to show a positive portrayal of gay sexuality, and in his now classic music videos for The Smiths and Pet Shop Boys, he was able to parlay his signature non-narrative style into shorter clips seen by a wider audience.

Other communication strategies took hold as artists dying of AIDS felt a need to leave behind a story and a legacy of a previously untold or unrepresented struggle. David Wojnarowicz, renowned as much for his writing as for his art-making, collaborated with close friends, illustrator James Romberger and colorist Marguerite Van Cook, to create an autobiographical comic book. 7 Miles a Second relays Wojnarowicz’s complex relationship to sex, the government and AIDS through a combination of fantastic imagery and a narrative which alternates between angry reality and a surrealistic dream. Working together until the end of Wojnarowicz’s life, Romberger and Van Cook had to finish the book four years after his death. 7 Miles a Second was published by DC Comics, a publisher associated more with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman than East Village artists. Although comics rarely tackle such overt political or social issues or work with artists such as Wojnarowicz, his own practice often combined text and image. Wojnarowicz’s relationship to the gallery system was a reluctant one and his efforts to stay as accessible as possible are ideally realized through his comic book. Comics often take the story of an ordinary person and empowers them to do the impossible; among the most striking images is an enormous Wojnarowicz punching St. Patrick’s Cathedral in a manifestation of his frustration against the Catholic Church and their homophobic stance. Yet other images of Wojnarowicz alone in his apartment are equally absorbing; the sense of simultaneous rage, isolation and helplessness is penetrating and draws the reader into his world just as well.

Much of the work discussed here is about an extremely private and individualized experience manifested in a public display; artists at this time had to give up their private lives, whether their own or those of their friends, for the public good. Yet this work also actively questions the idea that AIDS is an individual struggle, one without outside sociopolitical forces. Rather than being an issue of sacrifice, there is a desire for the audience to share with, learn from and connect through the encounter with the work; those on the receiving end are more important than ever. Gonzalez-Torres said:

“Perhaps between public and private, between personal and social, between fear of loss and the joy of loving, growing, changing, of always becoming more, of losing oneself slowly and then being replenished all over again from scratch, I need the viewer, I need the public interaction. Without the public, these works are nothing. I need the public to complete the work. I ask the public to help me, to take responsibility, to become part of my work, to join in.”[vii]

The unlimited editions of Gonzalez-Torres’s stacks of paper or piles of candy, or the balloons used in General Idea’s Magic Bullet or Placebo (Helium) installations (which the viewer is supposed to take as they deflate and fall from the ceiling) not only allow the viewer to play an active part in the installation, but also ensure a certain cyclical sense of continuity for the work. The act of replenishing the paper, the candy, the balloons, is one of renewal. Life will go on, without a doubt, after the death of the artist. By responding to Gonzalez-Torres’s request, by agreeing to take responsibility, we claim our part in history.

The crucial step at the start of the AIDS crisis was to transform it from a disease which affects “them” to one that affects “us”. Now, as a worldwide pandemic, it is just as much our problem, in the most global sense, as it was in Goldin’s 1989 statement of inclusion. It has become such a fact of everyday life that it is no longer news for many industrialized countries; we still need constant reminders that it is not an African problem, an Indian problem, still someone else’s problem. The artists in Pilot Light made AIDS a priority to be dealt with and through their efforts they allowed the mainstream to accept it. These works aren’t a document of a specific time and place which has now been resolved; they are the beginnings of a conversation. The struggle now is not about acceptance but remembering that AIDS isn’t just still here, it has continued to grow, even when it is not blatantly confronting us on sitcoms, on the radio, in the movie theater. Just as it did thirty years ago, it continues to attack us relentlessly, whether we are paying attention or not. William Olander, senior curator at the New Museum in New York, who died of AIDS in 1989 at the age of 38, wrote poignantly and urgently in 1987 “Let the record show that there are many in the community of art and artists who chose not to be silent in the 1980s.”[viii] These records, that choice, that anger and that resistance are not to be forgotten.

Illustrated top:

Nan Goldin, Gilles and Gotscho embracing, 1992
cibachrome print, 30 x 40 in (76.2 x 101.6 cm). Courtesy Nan Goldin and Yvon Lambert

[ii] Jarman, Derek. At Your Own Risk: A Saint’s Testament. London: Overlook TP, 1992, p 4.

[iii] Gran Fury collection. Manuscripts and Archives Division. The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

[iv] Spector, p 73.

[v] AA Bronson quoted in Joshua Decter, “General Idea”, Journal of Contemporary Art, Spring Summer 1991, p 58.

[vi] Jarman, p 97.

[vii] Felix Gonzalez-Torres interview with Tim Rollins, Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Los Angeles: Art Resources Transfer, 1993, p 23. Quoted in Spector, p 57.

[viii] Olander, William. Brochure for “Let the Record Show”. New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1987.

A project organised by ArtAids with the participation of twenty artists from Barcelona or with a special link to the city. The project is driven by a desire to increase awareness of the need for prevention and to reflect on the feelings of people living with HIV. The curator of the exhibition, Miquel Bardagil, sees it as the culmination of a project that began in 2008 and encompasses a very wide range of activities, some in collaboration with other institutions. In general, most of the artists participating in the project had not previously worked with the subject of Aids in any significant way, and thus the exhibition avoids predictable approaches and opens up new ways of seeing.

The idea of the exterior – the “outside” in the exhibition’s title– is linked to that of being outdoors. This concept is the starting point for the exhibition, allowing us an insight into the experience of HIV-positive people, and also structures the exhibition and the work of the artists. It is a starting point – even if it leads us elsewhere in the end.

This particular vision from the outside in, from several generations of artists and from different disciplines such as installation, photography, painting and video, is the concept that underlies the works presented by the artists. Each artist was given production budget and an artist’s fee, and will then transfer ownership of the work to ArtAids. Thus, the artists are involved on two fronts: by transferring ownership of the work, and by making an AIDS-related work.

‘On the Outside Looking In’ is the first project carried out by the ArtAids Foundation in Barcelona, the city where its local and international activities will be developed from now on. After its Barcelona season, ‘On the Outside Looking In’ will be presented in Oviedo (Banco Herrero Head Office) from September to November, 2010, and then at MuVM in Valencia from December 16th to February 27th, 2011.

Artists

Francesc Abad – LEBENSWELT. La Cultura és un ganivet que s´endinsa en el futur. Diaris del pensar 6. Apunts 2002.
Ignasi Aballí – Línia vermella
Iñaki Àlvarez – La vida podría ser esto (Ara resulta que sóc un heroi)
Roger Bernat – Vosaltres
Jordi Canudas – Màcula. La vida en blanc
Biel Capllonch – Where the clouds are far behind me
Pep Dardanyà – Lab. 50
Alícia Framis – Tacones para hombres (Framis for Men)
Núria Güell – Rte. Sanatorio de los Cocos, Habana Campo. Cuba
Jean-Charles Hue – Carne viva
Cova Macías – La cita
Anna Marín – dar T
Josep-Maria Martín – El jardiner astrònom
Marina Núñez – Visión (3)
Antonio Ortega – Trad as I
Santiago Ortiz – Plasma
Javier Peñafiel – Víctima de diagnóstico
L. A. Raeven – Dead Man Walking
Job Ramos – Res s’assembla a allò esperat i mentrestant descarreguem la nostra impaciència
Erich Weiss – Res no ha canviat / Nothing has changed (A tribute to Keith Haring)

Mapa

View Mirant des de fora / Mirando desde fuera / On the Outside Looking In in a larger map

Related activities

Educational and Artistic Project in La Mina Neighbourhood

The 1st Big Book of HIV Prevention will be produced in La Mina. The collaborative book will be created through the contributions of young and old, members of organisations and associations, workers and students, volunteers and participants in social projects: in short, by all the local residents who want to take an active role.
The book will be launched with a theatre action and artistic intervention that will mark the start of an awareness raising campaign. On completion, it will become part of the collection of Font de La Mina Library on Thursday December 3, at 5.30pm.

Educational project at La Casa Elizalde (from December 3rd to 10th)

A 2-hour program aimed at secondary school students. Based on an analysis of the exhibited works, students will construct a new space of knowledge around AIDS and people who live with this illness.

CASA ÀSIA: More To Love

‘More to Love’ was an exhibition presented at Bangkok and Chiang-Mai (Thailand) in the summer of 2008. ArtAids brought together twenty
European and Thai artist and a curator with people living with AIDS and others who are involved in the fight against the disease, with the objective of changing some of the mainstream attitudes that stigmatise people affected by HIV.

ARTISTS

Otto Berchem
Top Changtrakul
Amrit Chusuwan
Patiroop Chychookiat
Tintin Cooper
Leo Copers
Toeingam Guptabutra
Sutee Kunavichayanont
Krit Ngamsom
Nuts Society and Practical Studio
Nipan Oranniwesna
Kamol Phaosavasdi
Pratchaya Phinthong
Arin Rungjang
Prateep Suthathongthai
Noree Thammarak
Gerald Van Der Kaap
Erich Weiss
Pornprasert Yamazaki

In September 2005 the photographers Viviane Sassen and Martine Stig travelled to Moscow with five ‘condom dresses’ by the Brazilian designer Adriana Bertini in their luggage. Stig and Sassen scouted around five locations in Moscow in search of young women – contemporary Cinderellas – to model the outfits. They recorded their quest in five series of photographs.

The founder of ArtAids, Han Nefkens, had bought Bertini’s textile and condom outfits at the International Aids Conference in Bangkok in 2004. As part of his H+F Collection, the outfits were given on long-term loan to the Centraal Museum in Utrecht but it soon became clear that the latex condoms could not be conserved. The desire to document the outfits before the condoms perished led to the commission for Stig and Sassen, who developed the Cover concept.

Viviane Sassen and Martine Stig sought their models among ordinary young women in the highly developed city of Moscow – focussed choices intended to challenge the stereotypes associated with Aids. Cover is a kaleidoscopic image of five young women, their cultures and urban Moscow in which Bertini’s condom dresses have been rendered ‘normal’.

Cover was first shown at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht in 2008.

Get in touch

For information about sales of the Cover portfolios please contact:
enter@motivegallery.nl
T +31 (0)20 330 3668 (Motive Gallery)

For information about ArtAids, the Cover project, additional images and/or interviews with those involved please contact:
info@artaids.com
T +31 (0)628 726 033 (Mariska Beljon)

For information about the exhibition at the AMC Brummelkamp Gallery please contact::
kunstzaken@amc.nl
T +31 (0)20 566 33 32 (Sabrina Kamstra)

Opening: ‘On the Outside Looking In’
December 1st, 2009 at 7.30pm
Nivell Zero-Fundació Suñol (C/ Rosselló, 240. Barcelona)

`On the Outside Looking In’, a group exhibition featuring twenty artists from Barcelona, or with a very special connection to the city, in nine venues around Barcelona. The event will take place at 7.30pm on Tuesday December 1st, at Nivell Zero-Fundació Suñol. A performance by Alicia Framis, ‘Forbidden Places (Framis for Men)’ will officially open.

A project organised by ArtAids with the participation of twenty artists from Barcelona or with a special link to the city. ‘On The Outside Looking In’ is driven by a desire to increase awareness of the need for prevention and to reflect on the feelings of people living with HIV. The curator of the exhibition, Miquel Bardagil, sees it as the culmination of a project that began in 2008 and encompasses a very wide range of activities, some in collaboration with other institutions. In general, most of the artists participating in the project had not previously worked with the subject of Aids in any significant way, and thus the exhibition avoids predictable approaches and opens up new ways of seeing.

The idea of the exterior – the “outside” in the exhibition’s title– is linked to that of being outdoors. This concept is the starting point for the exhibition, allowing us an insight into the experience of HIV-positive people, and also structures the exhibition and the work of the artists. It is a starting point – even if it leads us elsewhere in the end.

This particular vision from the outside in, from several generations of artists and from different disciplines such as installation, photography, painting and video, is the concept that underlies the works presented by the artists. Each artist was given production budget and an artist’s fee, and will then transfer ownership of the work to ArtAids. Thus, the artists are involved on two fronts: by transferring ownership of the work, and by making an AIDS-related work.

‘On The Outside Looking In’ is the first project carried out by the ArtAids Foundation in Barcelona, the city where its local and international activities will be developed from now on. After its Barcelona season, ‘On The Outside Looking In’ will be presented in Oviedo (Banco Herrero Head Office) from September to November, 2010, and then at MuVM in Valencia from December 16th to February 27th, 2011.

Related activities

Artists

Francesc Abad – LEBENSWELT. La Cultura és un ganivet que s´endinsa en el futur. Diaris del pensar 6. Apunts 2002.
Ignasi Aballí – Línia vermella
Iñaki Àlvarez – La vida podría ser esto (Ara resulta que sóc un heroi)
Roger Bernat – Vosaltres
Jordi Canudas – Màcula. La vida en blanc
Biel Capllonch – Where the clouds are far behind me
Pep Dardanyà – Lab. 50
Alícia Framis – Tacones para hombres (Framis for Men)
Núria Güell – Rte. Sanatorio de los Cocos, Habana Campo. Cuba
Jean-Charles Hue – Carne viva
Cova Macías – La cita
Anna Marín – dar T
Josep-Maria Martín – El jardiner astrònom
Marina Núñez – Visión (3)
Antonio Ortega – Trad as I
Santiago Ortiz – Plasma
Javier Peñafiel – Víctima de diagnóstico
L. A. Raeven – Dead Man Walking
Job Ramos – Res s’assembla a allò esperat i mentrestant descarreguem la nostra impaciència
Erich Weiss – Res no ha canviat / Nothing has changed (A tribute to Keith Haring)

Map

View Mirant des de fora / Mirando desde fuera / On the Outside Looking In in a larger map

Educational and Theatre Project in La Mina Neighbourhood

The 1st Big Book of HIV Prevention will be produced in La Mina. The collaborative book will be created through the contributions of young and old, members of organisations and associations, workers and students, volunteers and participants in social projects: in short, by all the local residents who want to take an active role.
The book will be launched with a theatre action and artistic intervention that will mark the start of an awareness raising campaign. On completion, it will become part of the collection of Font de La Mina Library on Thursday December 3, at 5.30pm.

Educational project at La Casa Elizalde (from December 3rd to 10th)

A 2-hour program aimed at secondary school students. Based on an analysis of the exhibited works, students will construct a new space of knowledge around AIDS and people who live with this illness.

CASA ÀSIA: More To Love

‘More to Love’ was an exhibition presented at Bangkok and Chiang-Mai (Thailand) in the summer of 2008. ArtAids brought together twenty
European and Thai artist and a curator with people living with AIDS and others who are involved in the fight against the disease, with the objective of changing some of the mainstream attitudes that stigmatise people affected by HIV.

ARTISTS

Otto Berchem
Top Changtrakul
Amrit Chusuwan
Patiroop Chychookiat
Tintin Cooper
Leo Copers
Toeingam Guptabutra
Sutee Kunavichayanont
Krit Ngamsom
Nuts Society and Practical Studio
Nipan Oranniwesna
Kamol Phaosavasdi
Pratchaya Phinthong
Arin Rungjang
Prateep Suthathongthai
Noree Thammarak
Gerald Van Der Kaap
Erich Weiss
Pornprasert Yamazaki

Phinthong has recently gained a significant international reputation and was included in the 2006 Singapore Biennale. Curious, intelligent and socially aware, his projects include using art venues to raise funds for a small library in Thailand’s Ubonratchatanee province. He is currently sharing and developing ideas with art students from several Thai provinces. Pratchaya Phinthong is a participant in the 2008 More to Love project.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

‘Access for All’ was the theme of the biennial International Aids Conference held in Bangkok in 2004. In conjunction with the conference, Han Nefkens and Hilde Teerlinck, then director of the CRAC Alsace in Altkirch (FR), asked each of ten artists from different countries to design a work based on this theme. The results were ten special works of art, each reflecting the artist’s personal view of the Aids problem. These high-quality pieces were produced by the Ecole Supérieure d’Art Le Quai in Mulhouse and Imprimerie Bieler in Huningue in a limited edition of fifty sets. During the conference the works were displayed in the famous Queen’s Gallery in Bangkok and were subsequently presented at the CRAC in Altkirch.
In the spring of 2006, the works toured four Dutch museums: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Museum Het Domein in Sittard, the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden and the Museum Jan Cunen in Oss. A series of talks with schoolchildren were organised in conjunction with the exhibitions in order to stimulate the discussion of the Aids problem.

ArtAids continues to sell the portfolios of prints (see below).

INTRODUCTION BY HAN NEFKENS

[Published in the 2006 book that accompanies each portfolio]

As part of the presentation of Access for All in the Centre Rhénan d’Art Contemporain (CRAC) in Altkirch, a small town in the Alsace, I was invited by the local high school to talk to the students about HIV in the world and HIV in my own body. As I stood before the class, I suddenly realised that on that very day, exactly eighteen years before, I had first been given the news that I was HIV positive. After the students had asked all their questions, I had something to ask them. I wanted to know what their reaction would be if they were to hear that they were infected with HIV. ‘I’d rather die right away,’ was one of the reactions, ‘because everybody would find out that I had done something bad.’ I thought ‘bad’ wasn’t quite the right word. ‘Stupid’ seemed better to me. It’s stupid to do something that can have such serious consequences when the consequences are so easy to prevent. Sometimes the consequences of such stupidity are way out of proportion to the act itself.
The drawings the students made after their visit to the exhibition hung on the classroom wall. One of the drawings featured the hands that Shirin Neshat had photographed for Access for All, with the word ‘solidarity’ written around them. All the students agreed you ought to show solidarity with people who have HIV, yet they were afraid of how others would react. My proposal that perhaps there should be more of a discussion about HIV and Aids was rejected as a not very interesting option. They thought a vending machine with condoms in the recreation room would be much more important  and collecting money for the children suffering from Aids in Thailand, such as my little friend Note, whom I had just told them about. They immediately came up with dozens of ideas for raising money.
So that’s how the virus and I celebrated our birthday: with the students of Altkirch in honour of little Note in Bangkok. The words of ‘Happy Birthday’ rang out in France and could be heard all the way to Thailand.

THE ARTISTS

ArtAids thanks the artists who contributed to the Access for All portfolio:
Leandro Erlich
General Idea
Jef Geys
Shirin Neshat
Kamol Phaosavasdi
Shirana Shahbazi
Manit Sriwanichpoom
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Lawrence Weiner
Sue Williamson

FOR SALE

The Access for All series is sold in a portfolio.

Contents of the portfolio:
- 10 prints (offset and silkscreen) measuring 64.5 x 50 cm
- a white sheet of paper measuring 64.5 x 50 cm, with the text ‘for all those who can no longer participate in this project’ printed in white
- a signed and numbered certificate
- a 10-page book intruducing each artist

The price of a portfolio is €1,950.00 (excl. 19% VAT).

For all inquiries, please contact ArtAids at info@artaids.com.

Illustrated: Acces for All on display in highshool Hooghuis West in Oss, The Netherlands.
Photograph: © Ingo Gotz