Rebecca Guberman: Public and Private click on any image to enlarge The Estate Project for Artist With AIDS--which publishes Artery: The AIDS-Arts Forum--operates many archival projects in areas such as experimental film and activist video. For the visual arts, it offers the Virtual Collection, a database of more than 3,000 images representing the research efforts of Visual AIDS, Visual AIDS Boston, Visual Aid (in San Franciso) and the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. Curators, historians and the general public may access these images via the Internet and on-site at 200 cultural institutions worldwide. Rebecca Guberman, an accomplished young artist whose work is documented in the Virtual Collection, is the subject of this Artist in the Archives interview, a regular Artery feature. Robert Atkins: Your visual artwork seems of a piece: Layered, diaristic, filled with your own photos and text fragments about the big issues of life and death. But last time we spoke you said it was taking a new direction. What did you mean? Rebecca Guberman: The work is visually changing but the ideas and themes are the same. A lot of it is about the process of living and dying and the intensity of that. The work is often focused on myself, that is my pain and my vision. But I'm not focusing on myself so much now. I've used lots of images of birds in my work, for example. Many birds don't adapt well to city life and I'm interested in how human life affects others. So I'm photographing specimens of birds in water. They are quite mysterious looking. And I'm also photographing oversized jars with the roots of plants in them. So I'll be overlaying dead specimens along with live roots. Two Birds (1996) Detail from Dirty Bird (1999) RA: Which you'll print as a single print? RG: Yes. And then I'll incorporate words typed on acetate, put it in a metal box frame and cover it all in resin. RA: It sounds like a shrine. RG: Sort of. The effect is like ancient insects trapped in amber. RA: Where do the words come from? RG: Most of them are from my own journals. Occasionally I'll use something from "Human, All Too Human," Nietszche's collection of titled aphorisms. Or that will enter the work as a titlefor a piece like "Quand Meme: None the Less." RA: Your film, "Blood Lines," seems very public in spirit as opposed to the personal nature of your art. RG: We [Guberman and collaborator Jennifer Jake] wanted it to be more artistic, but that would have been selfish. We mainly wanted it to be something youth would respond to. A lot of this felt compromising at first, but it didn't later on. Making the film shaped our private lives, it definitely helped shape some of my perspectives. I could stop focusing on myself. Even though others see my artwork, I first create it for myself. This was different. Blood Lines Still RA: The beautiful blood imagery in the film seems like your work to me. RG: Actually that was part of my thesis, my BFA, show. It was the only show based on my blood and you saw some of that work at Artists Space in New York as part of "A Living Testament of the Blood Fairies" in 1997. That work and the film are all I've done that relate so directly to my HIV status. My work since the mid-nineties has been much more general. RA: How did you and your collaborator Jennifer Jako meet? RG: We kept trying to meet through friends. And when we did we didn't really have much of a connection. She asked if I'd help with her portfolio in order to get into school [the Pacific Northwest College of Art] but I was going off to my internship in New York. So I left for 4 1/2 months and when she first saw me on my return-she'd gotten into school-she was so excited she practically knocked me over when she saw me. This was 1995 and she wanted me to go with her to the National Alliance for Positive Youth meeting, so we were asked to go together to Washington, DC. We realized we had to document this event. Neither of us remember who said: "Let's do a film." RA: Making a film is always torturous. What was your process? RG: We traveled across country with a cameraman shooting. There was also a little bit of footage shot in Europe. By the fourth year the physical stress was showing. Then we met the huge local ad agency Weiden & Kennedy and took our raw footage there and they took us under their wing. They worked to get $40,000 from MTV for a slightly shorter version than [the 22-minute completed work] you saw. The MTV version had commercials, of course, and they wanted it to focus on us and our travels. We were frustrated and re-worked it to be more compelling. Blood Lines Still RA: You've had quite a bit of success with the film haven't you? RG: Yes. After finishing it, we contacted an educational distribution company and said it had to be a non-exclusive deal. Now we have three companies representing us. "Blood Lines" goes to high schools and youth organizations mostly. There's an instructional guide that goes with it. The responses have been extremely satisfying. A teacher emailed one of those distributors and said it was the best educational film on HIV she's seen. Comments like that have made it worthwhile. We're even making money on it now, and maybe we can pay off our debts from it over the next year. I'm in for $14,000 and Jennifer $25,000-she had bigger credit card limits. I'm glad to be done with it. Detail from Sun Blowing Through the Cycle of Forgiveness (1999) RA: Do you think of yourself as an activist? RG: Yes. Definitely in terms of that piece and I'd like to do more. Here [in Portland, Oregon] I focus more on environmental activism. I didn't go to the anti-World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle because I was worried about my health if I should be thrown in jail. I did start a little march in Portland for the occasion. It was fun. RA: Activism ought to be fun, or at least satisfying. To return to your work, I found it odd that in all the writing about it nobody referred to how you got HIV, from sex and drugs as a teenager. RG: In some ways the media have been well trained to ignore the causes of HIV infection, to not be sensationalistic. But there's definitely pros and cons [in the handling of HIV] in almost every article that's been written about me. For my first big solo show in Portland the local paper did a huge article on me. They said that it was to be about my work and then they asked if they could do a piece about me being an HIV+ artist… I said no thanks, I forbade it. They agreed and did a piece that still focused on HIV. I want to be seen as an artist, not an AIDS artist, because my work doesn't normally deal with so specific an issue. RA: Of course the context of each article matters, but I was very struck that in "Blood Lines" your young subjects seem very liberated by talking openly and directly about their experiences. Rebecca Guberman (featured) Blood Lines Still RG: You know, despite all the years that have passed [since my infection], sometimes I still feel ashamed. I don't know if it's just the culture we live in and its views about difference. I'm different-tatoos all over my body, HIV. Sex isn't ever normal. I have to take my pills. If I have a new roommate, I'll have to tell her. I want to be anonymous, but I've never been able to do that. Until [Jennifer] Jako arrived I was always the only one. I valued my last partner who made me feel like a woman. I don't want the dialogue about AIDS to stop. But there needs to be a separation in my personal and public lives. It's crucial to my survival and sanity. RA: Would you exhibit again in an AIDS-arts show organized for Day Without Art? RG: I was invited to show my photographs in Houston for the coming Day Without Art show. I said that I didn't want to show the photographs but did want to show "Blood Lines." RA: You're only 29. How long have you been infected? RG: Since 1989. RA: How is your health? RG: It's good. I've got a few concerns and complications. But it's under control now. RA: Thank you! Butakalas (1999) Information about Blood Lines is available at www.Blood-Lines.org Also Read Artist in the Archive Interviews with: Frank Moore, Visual Artist Jack Waters, Experimental Filmmaker Gregg Bordowitz, Activist and Video Maker