With more than 48,000 panels and 94,000 names, the AIDS quilt is a constantly growing testament to the deadly toll the disease has taken on the world. At roughly 1.3 million square feet, it is so large that it can’t be displayed in its entirety in one place. Parts of it are currently on display at the National Mall, with volunteers constantly switching sections in and out.
Thanks to dramatic advances in drug therapy, infection with HIV has been transformed from a death sentence to a chronic, manageable disease. HIV-positive patients can even enjoy a normal life expectancy if treatment is successful. So we needn’t worry about this virus anymore, right? Sadly, that seems to be the misinformed idea held by many.
If you visit the Art AIDS America exhibition expecting to see activist slogans and memorial pieces along with some art-world superstars, you won’t be disappointed—Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe and the “Silence = Death” slogan are present and accounted for—but you might also walk through the show scratching your head in confusion.
In June of 1987, a small group of strangers gathered in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease.
In 1987 with AIDS deaths in the thousands and government policy still criminally indifferent, activists formed ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) with the purpose of turning anger, fear, and grief into action.
"Puppets Against Aids was launched by Gary Friedman on 1st December 1988 in time for 'World Aids Day' in Johannesburg, South Africa. During 1987, Friedman had been studying with Muppet master, Jim Henson, in Charleville-Mézières, France. Henson provided the initial financial contribution to launch the African Research and Educational Puppetry Programme 'Puppets Against Aids'.
What is it like living with AIDS? This heart-wrenching video for South Africa’s Topsy Foundation brings us through 90 hard days in the life of someone living with it. Be sure to watch it all the way to the end. It’s worth it:
Did you catch that? If you didn’t, watch it again. Spoiler after the jump.
"Medicine Man," a mobile sculpture that MAKE ART/STOP AIDS commissioned from San Francisco-based artists Daniel Goldstein and John Kapellas. The piece is constructed of pill bottles that Goldstein and Kapellas, and their partners, saved up from treatment regimens dating as far back as 1985. The artists assembled the bottles in the shape of the Virgin of Guadalupe, with an aureole of syringes arrayed around her body in a halo.