VisualAIDS

Visual AIDS has a new Blog

2011-02-01T20:19:00-05:00

Check out the NEW Visual AIDS blog at www.visualAIDS.blogspot.com

'Tis the Season for Giving...

2010-12-22T14:55:42-05:00

Happy Holidays from Visual AIDS

Season's Greetings and thank you for supporting Visual AIDS as we enter our 23^rd year working with contemporary art to end AIDS and historicizing the contributions of artists with HIV.

Please keep Visual AIDS vital by making a year-end gift. Your tax-deductible donation is essential in helping Visual AIDS continue great arts programming. 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.

Your contribution ensures we can expand successful projects like our HIV-prevention artist editions. Our recent Play Smart trading card featuring photographs by Aaron Cobbett, Slava Mogutin, inkedKenny and Greg Mitchell, is an honest and straight-forward approach to promote harm reduction, HIV testing and post-exposure prophylaxis. Over 18,000 trading cards packaged with condoms and lubed were distributed for free nationwide. Our last exhibition To Believe at La MaMa La Galleria showcased work exploring the turn towards ritual and spirituality artists under duress can take, whether disease, financial or other distress. This month for World AIDS Day we partnered with Ira Sachs to distribute Last Address to over twenty museums and art institutes, including the Whitney, New Museum, Museum of Art and Design, Warhol Museum, Wexner and Tate Modern.

Please consider making a generous, tax-deductible gift today. Your participation keeps Visual AIDS alive. Click HERE for details or to donate online.

Do Good, Get Good...

2010-12-21T15:00:00-05:00

Get something for yourself while supporting Visual AIDS at our Postcards from the Edge benefit.

Hosted by CRG Gallery from January 7-9, 2011

BENEFIT SALE
Take a guess: Over 1500 anonymously displayed postcard-size masterpieces. First-come, first-served. $5 suggested admission.

Saturday, January 8, 2011 from 10:00 - 6:00
$85 EACH. Buy 4 and get the fifth as our Thank You.

Sunday, January 9, 2011 from 12:00 - 4:00
$85 EACH. Buy 2 and get the third as our Thank You.

PREVIEW PARTY
The only opportunity to see the entire exhibition. No sales.
Friday, Jan. 7, 2011 from 6 to 8 p.m.
$85 admission includes one raffle ticket.
Admission payable at door. Participating artists attend free.
Raffle winner will select the FIRST postcard that evening. Additional raffle tickets available. Silent Auction of small works by Larissa Bates, Nicole Eisenman, Harmony Hammond, David Humphrey and Marc Swanson. New this year, top 10 bidders of VIP Access will secure the first 10 places in line -- no waiting.

Postcards from the Edge is an exhibit and benefit sale of over a thousand one-of-a-kind postcard-size works of art by established and emerging artists. The fun twist about the Postcards from the Edge benefit is that all artwork is exhibited anonymously. The works are signed on the back only and though viewers receive a list of all participating artists, they don't know who created which piece until after purchased! It makes for a fun guessing game, but also puts all the artwork on an even playing field, whether you show at a blue chip gallery or just graduated from art school...you don't know who you might be showing next to or whos art collection you might end up in! All proceeds support the programs of Visual AIDS.

Get a sneak-peek at Postcards from the Edge on Facebook.

Smithsonian Protest March

2010-12-14T18:41:48-05:00

**MARCH TO PROTEST SMITHSONIAN CENSORSHIP, SUNDAY DECEMBER 19**

Details for this event click here

NYC EVENTS:

The New York Public Library - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - 7:00 PM, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, South Court Auditorium : Conversation with Jonathan D. Katz and David C. Ward, curators of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, moderated by Jason Baumann, who coordinates LGBT collections for the New York Public Library

International Center for Photography - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - 7:00 PM, 1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street New York, NY 10036, RSVP required: ecardona@icp.org -free: Screening and discussion with: Nayland Blake, Joy Episalla, Jonathan D. Katz, Kristen Lubben, Amy Scholder, Marvin Taylor

P·P·O·W Gallery is screening the original full length version of this film at the gallery until December 22nd.

David Wojnarowicz' A Fire in My Belly is available to view online.

LINK FOR VIDEOS

Please contact P·P·O·W Gallery for screening requests or inquiries.

NEWS:

Official Statement by P·P·O·W Gallery and The Estate of David Wojnarowicz

Statement by Johnathan D. Katz, co-curator of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture

The New York Time's article, As Ants Crawl Over Crucifix, Dead Artist Is Assailed Again by Holland Cotter

Washington Post article by Philip Kennicott

The New York Time's Op- Ed column, Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian, by Frank Rich

Listing of venues screening A Fire in My Belly via HIDE/SEEK.org

Please go to P·P·O·W Gallery's Facebook page for full list of related articles and links

AIDS in FOCUS film screening

2010-12-14T18:25:02-05:00





AIDS in FOCUS Artists Responding to the World Pandemic
In observance of World AIDS Awareness, CINEMAROSA presents the program “AIDS in FOCUS,” stories about the pandemic and how it still affects the art community. The screening presentation includes the compelling feature film directed by Dan Wolman, “Tied Hands,” the story of a sensitive and complex relationship between a mother and her ailing son, and the shorts films; "Undercover Cross" directed by visual artists Cesar Wilson Vera and Jeff Ingram, a personal account of their HIV+ condition and artistic work, and the video project "This Pleasant and Grateful Asylum" created by well known Bronx dancer and choreographer, Arthur Aviles. Attending artists Cesa Wilson Vera, Jeff Ingram, Arthur Aviles and dancers will join Hector Canonge, Director of CINEMAROSA, for a discussion and Q&A session with the audience. Following the presentations, the public is invited to join the closing event for the art exhibition FRAMING AIDS 2010: ABSENCE at the Partnership Gallery . Light refreshments and cocktail reception will follow. TIED HANDS Dir. Dan Wolman Israel, 2006, 60 min. A compelling film tells the story of a sensitive and complex relationship between a mother and her ailing son. In her, turbulent, journey in the streets of Tel-Aviv, old truths from her past come back to life and threaten to break down a wall of denials behind which, she's been hiding all her life. UNDERCOVER CROSS Dirs. Cesar Wilson Vera and Jeff Ingram USA, 2009, 30 min. Enthusiastic and excited New York artist, Vera, and Californian artist, Ingram, have been friends for 20 years. Their collaboration in an exhibition inspired them to work in a project about AIDS. Terrified, but with much courage, they expose their own HIV status and how they have learned to creatively approach their life and artistic projects. THIS PLEASANT AND GREATFUL ASYLUM Arthur Aviles USA, 2009, 7 min. A video project created by well known dancer and coreographer from the Bronx, Arthur Aviles, the film is a ritual dance that celebrates the freedom of sexuality, the difficulty passion, freedom and dangers of sex, while challenging the conventions of commitment in a post AIDS epidemic World.
FREE ADMISSION but RSVP is recommended: info@cinemarosa.org

Directions to QMA: #7 Train from 42 Street or E, F, V, R Trains to 74th Street & Roosevelt Avenue, change for #7 Train (Main Street-Flushing Bound). Exit at Willest Point/Citi Fields Stadium, walk in the direction of the park. Museum is located in front of the metal globe, the Unisphere.


More information visit www.cinemarosa.org or send us an email

Find us in :

HOSTING PARTNER	FUNDED IN PART BY	MEDIA PARTNERS

CINEMAROSA IS MADE POSSIBLE, IN PART, BY PUBLIC FUNDS FROM THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS, WITH FUNDS FROM THE DECENTRALIZATION PROGRAM, A REGRANT PROGRAM OF THE NEW YORK STATE COUNCIL ON THE ARTS, ADMINISTERED BY THE QUEENS COUNCIL ON THE ARTS, AND INDIVIDUAL DONORS.

DEADLINE: Postcards from the Edge

2010-12-07T15:05:35-05:00

ARTWORK DEADLINE: Friday, December 10, 2010

Attention Artists:

POSTMARK DEADLINE for artwork is this Friday, Dec. 10, 2010.

Artwork can also be dropped off at the Visual AIDS office, 526 West 26th Street (btw 10th & 11th Avenues) Suite 501, Mon-Fri from 10-6, or after hours a slim envelope can be slid under the door. Drop off and deliveries will be accepted until Friday, December 17 until 6PM. NO ARTWORK will be accepted after that point. Please DO NOT drop off or mail artwork to CRG Gallery.

Click HERE for details and submission forms.

Also visit Visual AIDS's Facebook page for a sneak-peeks of some of the Postcards from the Edge artworks.

Protest Action Meeting

2010-12-06T15:48:00-05:00

Protest Action Meeting - David Wojnarowicz Censored Video

Meeting - Thursday Dec. 9, 6:30 pm

Location:
P.P.O.W GALLERY
511 W 25th St., Suite 301 – between 10th and 11th Ave.
New York, NY
Gallery phone: (212) 647-1044

STOP THE CENSORSHIP!

When he died in 1992, David Wojnarowicz, artist and writer with AIDS, left a body of work about the disease that remains unrivaled for its power and beauty. On December 1, 2010 the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC celebrated World AIDS Day by capitulating to the demands of right-wing politicians and an anti-gay religious group and removing David’s volcanic video rant, A Fire in My Belly, from an important and ground-breaking exhibition about art and sexual difference, Hide/Seek.

For more information or to join the emailing list contact hunterr5930@yahoo.com

Protester at National Portrait Gallery

2010-12-06T15:41:00-05:00

Nelson Santos

Mark Morrisroe monograph

2010-12-05T15:27:00-05:00

New Mark Morrisroe monograph published by jrp ringier.

from jrp ringier website:

The extraordinarily diverse work of the American photographer Mark Morrisroe has until now mostly been exhibited and discussed in connection with his famous Boston colleagues Nan Goldin and David Armstrong. Like them, Morrisroe documented his circle of friends, whose lifestyles were inspired by punk and bohemia. He finished his studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1982, a few years later than Goldin and Armstrong. He moved to New York in the middle of the 1980s, and died of AIDS-related illnesses in 1989 when he was only 30. Mark Morrisroe's short period of creativity in the 1980s was astonishingly productive and stands out because of its individual aesthetic. He captured his friends in painterly portraits and nude photographs; the Polaroid camera became a mirror of his own body, reflecting its illness and decay. During the three years leading up to his death he transferred his photographic experiments more and more to the darkroom, where he used pages from porn magazines and X-ray images of himself as negatives.

This first comprehensive monograph, realized on occasion of an exhibition at the Fotomuseum Winterthur and in collaboration with The Estate of Mark Morrisroe (Ringier Collection), shows many unknown works: from the tumultuous punk beginnings to the sandwich prints produced through extensive laboratory work, the graininess and muted colors of which are reminiscent of Pictorialism. The book is illustrated with more than 500 images, and accompanied by newly commissioned essays and a complete biography.

For details visit www.jrpringier.com

General Idea: Imagevirus by Gregg Bordowitz

2010-12-03T15:15:00-05:00

Book Launch with a conversation between AA Bronson and Gregg Bordowitz

Friday, December 10, 7pm

Artists Space 38 Green Street, 3rd floor, NYC

Published by Afterall Books, 2010
112p. ISBN: 978-1-8463806-5-5
$16 / $12 for members of Artists Space

To celebrate the launch of General Idea: Imagevirus, a new book by Gregg Bordowitz for Afterall Books' One Work series, Artists Space is hosting a discussion between Bordowitz and General Idea member AA Bronson.

Imagevirus started in the mid-1980s, when AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal, working together as General Idea, created a symbol using the acronym AIDS, boldly arranging the letters in a manner that resembled Robert Indiana’s LOVE logo. This launched a series of paintings, sculptures, videos, posters, exhibitions and ephemera that from 1987 to 1994 used the mechanism of viral transmission to investigate the term AIDS as both word and image.

Emerging out of the 1960s Canadian communal counterculture, an environment populated by experimentations with gender, media and polymorphous perversity, General Idea came together as a three-man outfit of anti-art art-pranksters who worked prolifically and exploited almost every medium, from print and exhibition to broadcast. The group thrilled and confounded, but always delivered an extraordinary display of control over both format and dissemination. Imagevirus is one of their most important works, and the perfect illustration of their way of working.

In the book, Gregg Bordowitz, an artist and a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, analyzes Imagevirus from the perspective of his own involvement with activist art initiatives in New York during the 1980s and 90s. Reconsidering the battles fought over sexuality and representation in those years, he explores how Imagevirus infected urban spaces across the world, offering a new model for artistic production, one strongly suited to ideological struggle.

Visual AIDS at NADA Art Fair, Miami

2010-12-02T15:47:31-05:00

Visual AIDS will be sharing Booth 103 with La MaMa La Galleria, at the NADA Art Fair from Dec 1-5, 2010. Artwork from the To Believe exhibition, including work by Clifford Smith and David Cannon Dashiell will be on display. Cover The Stump tote bags will also be available. If you are in Miami, please stop by.

Protest March against Smithsonian Censorship

2010-12-02T13:50:45-05:00

Artistic Action Planned for Thurs., Dec. 2: A silent protest march from Transformer gallery to the National Portrait Gallery and then on to Congress.

In early response to the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution's censoring of David Wojnarowicz's 1987 video work A Fire in My Belly, from the current Hide/Seek exhibition, Transformer initiated a screening of the work in our storefront project space at 1404 P Street, NW, Washington, DC. The work currently on view is an approximately four minute excerpt of the original thirty-minute work in progress by the artist.

"As a response to the censorship by the Smithsonian of Wojnarowicz's work, and in honor of World AIDS Day & Day With(out) Art, the many alternative art spaces, visual arts organizations, artists, and activists around the world that have paved the path for freedom of expression & the existence of experimental arts venues like Transformer, we feel it is our job to champion all artists' creative expression without constraints, and to continue the important dialogue Wojnarowicz's work generates about aggression, hunger, community, love, loss, as well as religion" states Victoria Reis, co-Founder, Executive & Artistic Director of Transformer.

Reis continues, "We have received overwhelmingly positive response to our actions from individuals and arts leaders all over the country who are shocked by the National Portrait Gallery's and the Smithsonian Institution's decision to censor this work from the Hide/Seek exhibition, and who are saddened by the bullying of lawmakers turning back the clock and once again using the threat of cutting arts funding as a scare tactic that is part of an anti-art, anti-intellectual, and anti-gay agenda. We are glad to see mobilizing of other screenings being organized in other cities."

Transformer will soon be showing the entire thirty-minute Wojnarowicz work in progress, with unique permission of his Estate: "I give Transformer permission to show this clearly censored work, I only wish David were alive, he would tear these censors apart." -Tom Rauffenbart, Executor of the Estate of David Wojnarowicz.

Artistic Action Planned for Thursday, December 2:
A silent protest march from Transformer to the
National Portrait Gallery and then on to Congress.
Meet at Transformer at 5:30pm.
The artistic action will begin at 6pm with mouths tied.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

In tandem with the on-going screening of Fire in My Belly, Transformer is organizing an artistic action for Thursday, December 2 in protest of the decision to censor David Wojnarowicz's video Fire in My Belly from the Hide/Seek exhibition. "We are inviting all people concerned by the actions of our law-makers, as well as the actions of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Portrait Gallery who cowered to governmental bullying, to meet at Transformer at 5:30pm Thursday 12/2 to participate in a silent walk from Transformer to the NPG. Following a visual expression of dissent in response to the censorship on the part of these organizations & our lawmakers, we will move on to the steps of Congress to further express our concern & dissent. " – James Alefantis, Transformer Board President.

Click here for additional information, or contact Transformer at info@transformergallery.org / 202-483-1102.

David Wojnarowicz artwork censored at Smithsonian

2010-12-02T13:35:40-05:00

via People for the American Way

Smithsonian Gives in to the Far Right, Censors the Artist Who “Spoiled Christmas”

Incoming House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor called yesterday for the closing of an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery that features work with sexual themes and a video about the AIDS epidemic in Latin American culture that includes 11 seconds of ants crawling on a Christ figure. Museum director Martin Sullivan has announced that the video has been removed from the exhibit because “people were leaping to a conclusion that we were intentionally trying to provoke Christians or spoil the Christmas season.”

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, who has a long history of far-right extremism, is the main force behind the move to censor the privately-funded exhibit.

Michael B. Keegan, President of People For the American Way, issued the following statement:

“There is absolutely no reason for our government to be in the business of censoring art, or cave to pressure from extreme Religious Right organizations just because it’s Christmas. That Bill Donohue and the Catholic League are fighting for censorship is unsurprising. That the GOP leadership is echoing their call is shameful. That the Smithsonian has given into their transparent political bullying is deeply disturbing.

“The United States, like other free nations, has a long history of supporting and embracing art by those of many different values and viewpoints. The Smithsonian museums host art that expresses strong religious devotion and art that expresses atheism and doubt. The museums house art from around the world, from every religion, and allow Americans to make their own decisions about what they like and what they don’t. These museums are an educational resource for the American people, not a political mouthpiece for the majority opinion.

“The new GOP leadership wants a government that stays out of people’s lives when it comes to health care and unemployment benefits, but they show no scruples about using government power to censor the free expression of those they disagree with. The American people must stand up to this blatant attempt to force politics into art and religion into politics."

Last Address screening on Day With(out) Art

2010-12-01T14:42:00-05:00

Day With(out) Art / World AIDS Day
December 1, 2010

Visual AIDS and Ira Sachs partner to mark over 20 years of action and remembrance of Day With(out) Art by sreening Last Address today, December 1, 2010, at the Whitney, New Museum, Museum of Art & Design, El Museo del Barrio, Tate Modern, The Getty, Andy Warhol Museum, Wexner Center for the Arts, Museum of Sex, Nakamura Keith Haring Collection, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Rachel Uffner Gallery, Cleopatra's, Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, Grey Art Gallery at NYU, Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Union Gallery at University of Arizona, Fales Library & Special Collections at NYU, and The LGBT Center of NYC, among others.

Keith Haring, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Cookie Mueller, Joe Brainard, David Wojnarowicz, Hugh Steers, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Hujar, Klaus Nomi....the list of New York artists who died of AIDS over the last several decades is countless, and the loss immeasurable. Last Address, by filmmaker Ira Sachs, uses images of the exteriors of the houses, apartment buildings, and lofts where these and others were living at the time of their deaths to mark the disappearance of a generation. The film is a remembrance of that loss, as well as an evocation of the continued presence of these artists’ work in our lives and culture. Watch Last Address here and learn more about each of the artists honored in the film -- including biographies, interviews, performance videos, audio recordings, and essays.

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.

Visual AIDS utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists, and preserving a 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. Visual AIDS launched Day With(out) Art as a World AIDS Day initiative in 1989 to mourn those we have lost and to promote a broader awareness of the crisis. As the AIDS crisis and our understanding of it evolve, so must our actions. Visual AIDS continues to produce thought-provoking exhibitions, events and artist editions promoting HIV preventions and AIDS Awareness.

Image: Ira Sachs, still from Last Address, 2010, running time 8:36 min. Manhattan's London Terrace, the final residences of filmmaker Howard Brookner, playwright Harry Kondoleon, and artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

Web Gallery curated by Ira Sachs and Boris Torres

2010-12-01T10:25:00-05:00

(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