Abstract
AIDS has contributed to changes in how our society constructs its image of death. In the early 1980s Philippe Ariès argued that death and the symbols surrounding it had been “relegated to the secret, private space of the home or the hospital.” With the coming of AIDS, death demands its place in the public mind - and eye. Many artists have devoted their talents to making AIDS visible. In doing so, they have resurrected many questions about sexuality and mortality. This paper discusses several examples of current AIDS art and places them in a wider cultural and historical context.
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Endnotes
Philippe Ariès,Images of Man and Death, translated by Janet Lloyd (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1985).
Robert F. Murphy,The Body Silent (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1987), p. 63.
Douglas Crimp,AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism, edited by Douglas Crimp (Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1988), p. 3.
Ibid..
Paula Treichler, “AIDS, Homophobia and Biomedical Discourse, and Epidemic of Signification”, inAIDS, Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism, edited by Douglas Crimp (Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1988), p. 31.
Donald Kuspit, “Crowding the Picture. Notes on American Activist Art Today,” inArt in the Public Interest, edited by Arlene Raven (Ann Arbor: London: UMI Research Press, 1989), p. 256.
Ibid., p. 259.
Elizabeth Taylor, introduction toThe Quilt: Stories from the Names Project (New York, Pocket Books, 1988), p. 7.
Jeff Weinstein, “Names Carried into the Future: an AIDS Quilt Unfolds,” inArt in the Public Interest, edited by Arlene Raven (Ann Arbor: London: UMI Research Press, 1989), p. 44.
Michael Feingold, “AIDS, Mourning and Action,” inHarper's Magazine, June, 1990, p. 31.
Weinstein, p. 52.
Robert Rosenblum, “Gilbert and George: the AIDS Pictures,”Art in America, November, 1989, p. 153.
Ibid. Robert Rosenblum, “Gilbert and George: the AIDS Pictures,”Art in America November, 1989, p. 154.
Ibid. Robert Rosenblum, “Gilbert and George: the AiDS Pictures,”Art in America, November, 1989, p. 154.
Quoted in Crimp,, p. 11.
Simon Watney, “The Spectacle of AIDS,” inAIDS, Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism, edited by Douglas Crimp (Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1988), p. 73.
John O'Neill, “AIDS as a Globalizing Panic,” inTheory, Culture and Society (SAGE, London, Newbury Park and New Delhi), Vol. 7 (1990), p. 332.
Philippe Ariès,Images of Man and Death, translated by Janet Lloyd (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1985). p. 1.
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Winkler, M. Representing AIDS. J Med Hum 15, 5–21 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02297732
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02297732