David Wojnarowicz, Democracy, 1990, Black-and-white silkscreen print, 23 x 20 inches, inches, Sold
Looking back at the AIDS crisis through the prism of history, the scale is so vast, the scope is broad, and the trauma is so real. They say time heals all wounds, but they were wrong. “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” William Faulkner understood.
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Two decades after the epidemic hit its zenith, we can now begin to look back, to reflect, to consider, discuss, and reflect on what happened, what it meant, and the lessons we can take as we enter a brave new world.
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ClampArt and Ward5B present Screaming in the Streets: AIDS, Art, Activism, a new group show curated by Greg Ellis, currently on view at the gallery through September 23, 2017. The exhibition presents the work of artists including Peter Hujar, David Wojnarowicz, Keith Haring, Reinaldo Arenas, Jimmy De Sana, and many more, who are no longer with us—but their art lives on.
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The exhibition also looks at radical spaces like the Pyramid Club, Boy Bar, Danceteria, The Club Baths, and other venues that became safe spaces for the community, but also grounds where intimate contact could propel the spread of the disease.
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“There is a tendency for people affected by this epidemic to police each other or pre- scribe what the most important gestures would be for dealing with this experience of loss. I resent that. At the same time, I worry that friends will slowly become professional pallbearers, waiting for each death, of their lovers, friends and neighbors, and polishing their funeral speeches; perfecting their rituals of death rather than a relatively simple ritual of life such as screaming in the streets,” David Wojnarowiz observed, recognizing they many ways AIDS destroyed lives.
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Yet, all was not lost for amid the horror, a beacon of hope that came about as AIDS activists took on the United States government and did not back down until they won. We speak with curator Greg Ellis about his vision for the show, the ways that art is used as a tool of agitation and community alike, and the lessons we can take forward.
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Nan Goldin, Suzanne and Phillippe on the train, Long Island, NY, 1985, Cibachrome print
(Edition of 100), 16 x 20 inches.
I’m so pleased you are doing this show, as the AIDS crisis has been on my mind for the past few years, in part because I feel that so much time has passed, there’s a new generation that has grown up without any real knowledge or understanding of the past.
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The other reason it’s been on my mind is upon reflection of how successful ACT UP was in forcing the government’s hand—lessons we can all benefit from as much today as back then. I wanted to begin by asking what was the inspiration or impetus for this show?
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Greg Ellis: The inspiration for this show has always been the friends we lost during the epidemic; creative, talented, and fiercely independent people that helped shape our politics and love of the arts. We were also interested in illuminating the interpersonal relationships that link the many artists and queer spaces to the microbiological disaster that was unfolding.
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Boy/Girl With Arms Akimbo and ACT UP were intentionally the jumping off point in this exhibition. What was important for us was illustrating the downtown art community’s activism that eventually resulted in these larger collectives. Wheatpasting, graffiti/stencil work, Xerography and film all were mediums that lent themselves to disseminating political messages in a way that was previously unavailable.
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This heritage of radical NYC politics was already in place in groups like Colab and their historic Times Square Show. Many of the artists represented in this show also had pieces in the 1980 exhibition, including Cara Perlman, Keith Haring and Jack Smith. Downtown artists were already collaborating on political and social issues as the first cases of seroconversion began to be reported.
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While AIDS affected so many people in the arts community, there has been a distinct absence of addressing the crisis since it occurred. May I ask, how do you account for the silence, as well as the resurgence of interest?
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Greg Ellis: We’ve included as the theoretical framework for the show Laura Cottingham’s essay, Notes on Lesbian. She speaks about the many ways the broader culture “erases” sexual minorities and other marginalized communities from the public record – whether through the exclusion in cultural histories or familial erasure in the disposal of material/memories related to homosexual family members and their partners.
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And while I believe this erasure did occur in many ways during the epidemic, I think it is a bit more complex with the AIDS crisis, primarily because it was such an emotionally and psychologically disfiguring trauma for those that survived.
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Time is a great healer, but the reality has been that addressing the overwhelming emptiness takes decades, as is common with those that have lived through wartime. What was so disquieting is that it hit a small, targeted minority so heavily, resulting in the deaths of so many lovers and friends. Some silence though is preferred. After the initial attacks on our civil liberties through hotly contested ballot measures and the homophobia of immoral nuts like Jesse Helms, their prejudice was quieted.
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Crisco Disco, c. 1970s-80s, Bar sign from original club on 11th Avenue in Manhattan (Silkscreen), 22 x 25 inches.
The subject is so vast and profound, having affected tens of thousands of people from all walks of life in a wide number of ways. How did you conceptualize the exhibition in terms of what you wanted to cover as well as which artists and works you wanted to showcase?
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Greg Ellis: It is a very personal show. I believe if the show affects people, that is the reason why. Everybody loses loved ones, and they create personal shrines for them. That is what the exhibition attempts to do, as well.
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Every piece in the show can be linked to another work with very few degrees of separation due to the collaborative working relationships of the downtown arts community, along with the limited options available to those pushed into the margins. Ethyl Eichelberger, Ken Tisa, Peter Hujar, David Wojnarowicz, and the others all shared close relationships within this tight knit circle. In fact much of the collection comes either directly from the artists or from their lovers and friends. And many of the pieces were gifts from the artists to fellow PWAs.
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We included memorial ephemera to punctuate the show with the ultimate indignity of what transpired. The title of the exhibit comes from a passage in David Wojnarowicz’s memoirs that highlight the importance of eulogizing the dead through direct action. David was right. As he became sicker I think the sense was that his artwork and AIDS activism became more intertwined.
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The work in the show conveys this sense of uniting activism with art. Mark Morrisroe was creating work from his hospital bed, documenting his physical decline while also using x-rays and his waning medical condition as a muse. They are powerful images of the disease, and bold statements of an artist using their own body as an agent of activism. This was taken a step further with the political funerals, and ashes actions of ACT UP.
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I’m particularly interested in the focus on radical spaces, as this is something that powerfully speaks to the times in which we live. Could you speak about the importance of having an actual space where the community can meet to connect to deal with the crisis? Could you also address the double-edged nature of these spaces—it seems so surreal to imagine that added layer, the very real threat of contagion, existing at the same time.
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Greg Ellis: Fundraising during the height of the epidemic often took place in nightclubs, sex positive spaces and galleries. Art was utilized to provide awareness about the deadly new contagion and to raise funds for combating it as the official response was anemic. Bathhouses served as sites where progressive politics, social constructs and both private and professional contacts were made. It was at gallery openings, club performances and while cruising for sex where these relationships were often formed.
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The trauma of course was that we were also risking exposure to the virus if we hadn’t embraced safe sex guidelines. And while the advent of harm reduction existed as early as 1983, when Joe Sonnabend, Michael Callen, and Richard Berkowitz penned How to Have Sex in an Epidemic, resistance to that message was strong.
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People were scared and often compulsively returned to those places for sex and community. This occurred in backrooms, at the baths, and in nightclubs where people commingled, entertained and met one another. They were both highly sexual as well as creative spaces that allowed for personal expression – an unknown for most queer people prior to relocating to urban centers.
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Keith Haring, Humiliation Victim, 1980, Xerox print, 8 x 10 inches.
Lastly, I’d love your insights on the relationship between art and activism, and the lessons we can learn from the past. What are the most critical aspects of this crisis that can benefit our communities today?
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Greg Ellis: If we learned anything from the AIDS epidemic it was that we shouldn’t turn to the people that have oppressed us to save our lives. Audre Lorde addressed this idea in her 1984 essay, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. Turning to the government to save us while they still criminalized homosexuality proved to be a larger battle than anyone could have foreseen.
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Artists tend to be activists by nature. Whether breaking new aesthetic ground or fighting against societal ills, they are our guiding lights in the darkest of times. That dynamism was especially clear when AIDS came to wreak havoc on their own. That we lost so many immensely talented voices in the heart of the major American urban centers, particularly NYC, unquestionably relates to the intellectual and cultural drought that has been felt for the past three decades.
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Ethyl Eichelberger/Peter Hujar | s.n.a.f.u. (Ethyl Eichelberger as Minnie the Maid). s.n.a.f.u. (Ethyl Eichelberger as Minnie the Maid). May/June 1987. Xerox copy (Photograph by Peter Hujar), 11 x 8.5 inches.