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COUNTERCULTURE
Atlanta College of Art
Premiers AIDS Works
What's it like to live with AIDS ? Knowing you have an HIV-positive
diagnosis. Coming to terms with that. Then - realizing that the way you are
treated by society, by the health care system, by the media, is another, insidious
part of your oppression that is if not as bad as, then almost as bad as the
condition itself. Realizing that more of your friends, acquaintances, lovers also
have this condition. Seeing people you care about grow sick and die. And
knowing all the while that society blames you for your disease, or treats you as a
victim, or wants to ignore you and hope you and the thousands of others likewise
afflicted will just disappear.
Art has traditionally been the way a community comes to terms with the
forces that threaten it; it is a way of bringing peoples together, of communicating
a private vision to the public, of sharing communal goals, hopes, fears. Artists
have responded, in this time of AIDS, to the threat, to the private experiences,
and to the community's hope and also to its fears.
AIDS ART ACTION, ten multi-media collaborative projects by Georgia
artists and Persons Living With AIDS (PLWAs) will be on display in the Atlanta
College of Art Gallery from January 12 through February 10,1990. Organized
by SAME (Southeastern Arts, Media and Education Project, Inc.), AIDS ART
ACTION approaches visual art as a culturally activist form that can
communicate an idea, an experience, or a vision related to the life of a person
living with AIDS, ARC or a positive HIV test
Art has been created around the subject of AIDS, but often it has been by
persons looking on, not persons who are themselves living with the condition.
"We felt that people with AIDS needed a voice," says SAME artistic director
Rebecca Ranson.
AIDS ART ACTION is activist art The ten individual installations that make
up the exhibition communicate the private experience of persons living with
AIDS. But the purpose of AIDS ART ACTION is political as well as personal;
it aims to move the viewer/participant into a greater awareness of what the life of
a person living with AIDS is like. The goal of the installations is to create
awareness in the public.
"So often, those of us who speak publicly about AIDS are preaching to the
converted," says Kurt Rahn, one of the collaborators. "The gay community
knows what the problems are. I'm glad that this is at the Atlanta College of Art
Gallery because it will reach more of the general public. Art is a way to engage
the viewer. I'd like to challenge gay people to bring people not currently affected
by AIDS, a straight co-worker or friend.
The installations - ten in all - were each developed by an artist and a person
who has AIDS or has tested HIV-positive. Several visual forms have resulted,
video, photography, performance, installation pieces, and combination. Each
piece gives a unique view of what life is like for a person living with AIDS.
"The Trap" by Larry Anderson and Kurt Rahn represents the confinement
and powerlessness felt by a person with an HIV-positive diagnosis. The
installation intends to give the viewer/participant the feeling of being trapped,
confined, branded, numbered, that the PLWA experiences.
"Death Don't Take Our Love Away" presents photographs taken by Stebbo
Hill of stone monuments created by Michael Mason. The monuments, in Short
Mountain, Tennessee, represent memorials to Michael's friends and lovers who
have died of AIDS.
"Gridlock” by Bill Paul and Nathan Homstein shows the forms of five
humans, all bed-ridden with HTV-associated ailments. Because of overcrowded
health care facilities, they are all in one bed.
An opening reception, featuring performances and video screenings, is
planned for Friday, January 12, from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. Performances will
be "Oh I Just Have a Cold," by Tim Kevin and Madeleine St. Romain, and "Cafe
SIDA" by Ted Field and Monte McLain. Special events during the exhibition
include gallery talks by some of the participants, video screenings and
"Gridlock" by Bill Paul and Nathan Homstein, one of ten
installations featured in AIDS Art Action,
performances. On Saturday, January 27 at 1:00 p.m., Kevin and St romain
will give a second performance of "Oh, I Just Have a Cold," followed by a
discussion by the artists. On Wednesday, January 31 from 10:00 pram until
11:30 a.m., SAME art director and artist Stebbo Hill, painter and filmmaker
Pat Courtney and sculptor Jack Sinclair will discuss their projects and AIDS
ART ACTION.
On February 7 from 6:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m., video artist Ted Field and
photographer Christian Walker will discuss their projects, followed at 7:00
p.m. by a screening of "Promise of Life: Conversations with Long Term
Survivors of AIDS," directed by Gary Moss and produced for SAME. All
special events are open to the public and will be in the Gallery.
On Thursday, January 18, 7:30 p.m., in the Hill Auditorium, Rebecca
Ranson, artistic director of SAME, painter Larry Anderson, and Kurt Rahn,
founder and director of the Atlanta Chapter of the National Association of
People With AIDS (NAPWA), will speak as part of the "Works In Progress"
series presented by the 20th Century Society of the High Museum and Nexus
Contemporary Art Center. Also featured will be sculptor and filmmaker Ruth
Gumnit, who will discuss and show a video of this work. These discussions
are open to the public and will be followed by a reception at the Atlanta
College of Art Gallery.
The Atlanta College of Art Gallery is located at the Peachtree Street
entrance of the Memorial Arts Building in the Woodruff Arts Center, 1280
Peachtree Street, NE. The Gallery is open to the public free of charg e
Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Special viewing
hours during the exhibition include Sundays from 2:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m.
and Wednesday, February 7, until 8:00 p.m. For more information call Lisa
Tuttle at 898-1157, Pat Lummus at 898-1164, or Stebbo Hill at 584-2104
(SAME, Inc.)
Remember Al?
AI Cotton, subject of the first "Outlines,"
will appear on Jeapordy, January 9, on
Channel 5 at 5:30 PM.
Me
ALMANAC
THIS MONTH
In Gay & Lesbian History
January 1953: ONE begins publish
ing the first openly gay magazine in
the U.S. It promptly ran into
problems with the Post Office, which
objected to an article on gay mar
riages. Five years later, the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that the Post
Office had to deliver it anyway.
Excerpted with permission from The Aly-
son Almanac, available in bookstores na
tionwide. Copyright © 1989 by Alyson
Publications, Inc.
FAMILY
TREE
Virginia
Woolf
b. Jan. 25,1882.
d. Mar. 28,1941
British writer
A leading figure of the Bloomsbury
group and one of the most original
writers of the twentieth century,
Woolf created such landmark works
as Mrs. Dalloway and The Waves. Al
though the direction of her sexual
orientation remains open to debate,
Virginia Woolf's deep feelings of es
teem and affection for Vita Sackville-
West are undeniable. It was in honor
of Sackville-West that she wrote the
novel Orlando, in which the main
character starts out as a man and be
comes a woman.
Enter the New Decade
and New Age
with a New You
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January 4,1990 • Southern Voice/9