Wed 10/6 @ 7PM
When the AIDS epidemic swept through the gay community in the 1980s, it also hit the arts community, including the visual arts community, hard. By the time the ’90s rolled around Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, Robert Mapplethorpe and Peter Hujar, among the better-known names, were gone, along with many key figures in fashion, theater, music and dance.
Because of their mission to communicate through art, that battle found its way into the work of artists such as Wojnarowicz, and art became a tool for communication for activist groups such as ACT UP and the creators of the National AIDS Quilt.
Artists Archives of the Western Reserve, which is currently hosting the CONVERGE exhibit of LGBTQ+ artists from this region, is hosting a virtual panel discussion titled ART + AIDS to look at how the epidemic and art intersected, used to raise awareness, spur action, and honor those who had been lost at a time when the entire wave of illness and death was being disappeared by those in high places (think: Ronald Reagan).
AAWR’s Martha Pontoni, herself an LGBTQ+ activist, will moderate the panel which will feature CONVERGE artists Gil Kudrin (an AIDS survivor), and M. Carmen Lane, an activist in the Black LGBTQ+ community, and Daniel Marcus, who co-curated the recent Art After Stonewall exhibit at the Columbus Museum of Art. The discussion will have a particular focus on how the AIDS epidemic affects northeast Ohio and how artists in Ohio addressed it, with Marcus bringing his central Ohio-based perspective.
There’ll be a Q&A following the panel, which is free. To attend on Zoom, register here.