The Frank Moore
Archive Project at Visual AIDS's sole organizing principle --
preserving a visual record of the work of artists who live or
have lived with HIV/AIDS -- separates it from other kinds of art-world
spaces. The grouping creates a tremendous emotional, aesthetic
and social power.
The breadth and scale of the archive is overwhelming and there
was so much I didn't see. Yet spending time with the images that
struck me was an intimate experience. The hours I spent there
felt like being in a living room with the artists themselves,
some I knew and a lot I didn't. Perhaps it was the tactile experience
of looking through slides, or the warm atmosphere of the Visual
AIDS office itself with Amy and Nelson and the many volunteers
coming and going. Or perhaps it was my interest in learning about
(or constructing) a collective history of living with AIDS, of
AIDS activism and queer activism, image by image as a kind of
peer-to-peer consciousness-raising.
I found myself drawn to work that directly addresses the disease
and its social and political causes -- most especially the homophobia
that pre-existed AIDS. In my selection are images that particularly
moved me with their combination of beauty, humor, pain and defiance.
The title, Why Do You Insist on Flaunting?, taken from Carlos
Gutierrez-Solana's work, refers to the selected images' use of
life-affirming vitality and "gayness" to disrupt the
social and political status quo that perpetuates the crisis.
There are disruptions to physical sites of "business as
usual" as in Angel Borrero's handwritten cries for help inside
sterile office buildings; and the lyrical bodies of Tara Popick's
urban mermaid and John Lesnick's subway dancer.
And conceptual disruptions like Robert Blanchon's Cruising
New York City tours reclaiming the lost spots of pre-epidemic
gay cruising; David Wojnarowicz's kissing couple queering the
world map; and Valerie Caris's bloodwork personalizing a mass-produced
hospital gown.
There are formal aesthetic disruptions within images: The shape
and quantity of pills interrupting both the enjoyment of the bright
rainbow colors in Joe DeHoyos's Color Pills and the simple
AIDS text in Max Greenberg's image.
There is documentation of disruptions in the streets, demonstrations
and protests, as in Brent Nicholson Earle's photo capturing a
CDC die-in filled with vividly alive masses and rainbow flags,
or the banner in W. Benjamin Incerti's photo questioning lesbian
visibility in the AIDS crisis. (This question also seemed to parallel
my experience of trying to seek out the women and lesbian-identified
artists in the Frank Moore Archive Project. I found very few.)
I am drawn to the high heels in Hugh Steers' Morning Terrace;
the discomfort of Arnold Fern's beautiful young man submerged
in water; Jerome Caja's cheery gay picture stamped with an AIDS
ribbon; the humor and depth of loss in Becky Trotter's Pull
Up a Chair series; the motion of the bodies in Keith Haring's
Silence Equals Death (I can never see enough of this
image); the humor in Carlos Gutierrez-Solona's subversion of a
corporate sensitivity training questionnaire; Affrekka Jefferson's
Two Sapphos (I want to read this story!); and the assault
of gayness with Gregory Veney's many, many papi chulos.
May we continue to insist on flaunting.
b i o g r a p h y
Sacha Yanow is a NYC-based artist. She is the
Director of Art Matters and previously served as Director of Operations
at The Kitchen. She has performed in film, theater and dance works
by many artists including Karen Finley, Julie Tolentino, Laura
Parnes and Sarah Michelson. She is a writer and performer in the
ongoing live lesbian serial Room for Cream at La Mama, and is
a member of the Dyke Division of the Theater of a Two-Headed Calf.
Most recently, she has been developing a series of solo video
and performance "public service announcements," the
first of which will be included in the Little Theater evening
at Dixon Place in February 2011. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence
College and the William Esper Studio's Actor Training Program.
