In Memoriam
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Day With(out) Art/World AIDS Day is December 1.
Post info about your organization's event to our special Day With(out) Art/World
AIDS Day calendar by emailing Artery.
Or find out what's going on in your community by visiting
the listings on our events calendar.
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The Estate Project on Exhibit
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On October 28, the retrospective exhibition of the late, experimental
filmmaker Warren Sonbert's work, organized by
Jon Gartenberg in conjunction with The Estate Project for Artists with AIDS,
the Academy Film Archive, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, opens at
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. A panel discussion, "Themes and
Variations: Warren Sonbert's Approach to Narrative, " will be held on
October 29. For screening times and further information on the exhibition
please contact SFMOMA at 415.357.4000 or online at www.sfmoma.org.
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In New York On December 1st, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York
will open "Fever in the Archive: AIDS Activist Videotapes from the Royal S.
Marks Collection." (The Royal S. Marks Collection of AIDS Activist
Videotapes of the New York Public Library resulted from an effort by the
Estate Project for Artists
with AIDS to preserve the grassroots response of artists and activists to
the AIDS crisis.) These vivid and inspiring tapes resulted from the
availability of high-quality, relatively inexpensive video and the desperate
need to oppose unresponsive governments and mainstream media while
jettisoning the video conventions of voice-over, expert testimony and
scapegoating. Nine days of screening-programs- through December 9--have been
organized by the Estate Project's Jim Hubbard and thematically range from
collective action to women and AIDS. In conjunction with the show, Hubbard
will moderate a panel discussion at New York University, with Jean
Carlomusto, Douglas Crimp, Ann Cvetkovich, Gerard Fergerson and Alexandra
Juhasz on December 6th at 7 pm, which is co-sponsored by the Center for the
Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University. (For info about the
panel location and screenings, consult www.guggenheim.org)
A related panel, "Who Cares? AIDS Activism and the Arts," will be held at
the New School University in New York, 66 W. 12th St., at 8 p.m. on December
4 and moderated by Artery editor Robert Atkins. Sponsored by the NYU's Vera
List Center for Art and Politics, in conjunction with Artery and The Center
for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at NYU, it features panelists Gregg
Bordowitz, Richard Elovich, Sarah Schulman and Pamela Sneed.
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EXTRA! EXTRA!....LITERARY CONTEST
Artery, in conjunction with POZ magazine, is pleased to announce:
RAGE AND REMEMBRANCE: A LITERARY CONTEST
The AIDS epidemic is changing, the AIDS community is expanding, and
there are many voices in the mix that haven't been heard from yet. We
seek fiction, 500 to 3,000 words, about the AIDS epidemic. Short stories,
excerpts from novels-in-progress, satirical writing--it's all
fair game for you writers and our (savvy) judges. Top winners, will be
published in both POZ and in Artery, and will receive cash prizes.
Send English-language submissions only (which will not be returned), by
December 1, 2000, to:
Literary Contest
POZ Magazine
349 West 12th Street
New York, NY 10014
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A Virtual Memorial
We used to think of memorials as physical things, deriving much of their
meaning from their actual location. But the Internet has changed all that. A
German, media-art project a-virtual-memorial
is an online site
intended to engage the Really Big Questions: Individual and collective
responsibility for everything ranging from the Holocaust to the disappeared
in Argentina, and from homelessness to AIDS. A Virtual Memorial is a site
where artists' projects can be housed or linked, and exchange furthered
through the planned forum. There's also art and text works of the month. As
its founders remind us, the heart of a computer is memory.
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A Paper Memorial
The San Francisco PRIZE, a coalition of design organizations and the SF
Museum of Modern Art, along with the city's Department of Publics Works and Art Commission,
is holding a competition to redesign
the Harvey Milk Memorial Plaza. The plaza is named for the late city
supervisor, one of the first openly gay politicians anywhere, who was gunned
down by assassin Dan White two decades ago. The gateway to the legendary
Castro, San Francisco's historic gay/lesbian community, the plaza site is
awkwardly shaped: 22 lanes of traffic converge from six directions, and the
Castro's subterranean traffic hub for entrance to subway and trolley lines
is also located there. Artist Rudy Lemcke conceived his 1988 design
for "The Garden,"
an AIDS memorial proposed for the Harvey Milk Plaza but
never realized, adjacent to the entrance to the train lines.
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Milk said: "The American dream starts with the neighborhoods--if we wish to
rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods." Ironically,
San Francisco's high-tech boom is currently driving working and middle class
gays and lesbians from the neighborhood due to precipitously escalating real
estate prices. One point of memorials is to institutionalize history before
it disappears. Presumably, this memorial design will include not only, as
the prospectus puts it, "a commemorative work of public art, an object,
image, or concept evocative of the values for which Milk fought," but
references to neighborhood- and to AIDS history. The competition will be
judged in September and up to $10,000 in prizes will be awarded, but the
design itself won't necessarily be built. The proposals will be exhibited
from November 27-December 15 in an as yet unknown location.
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Hope Full
Andy Abrahams Wilson's "Hope is the Thing With Feathers" (1999) is a
harrowing and hypnotic 28-minute documentary film focusing on the poet and painter
Beau Riley. Although the story of losing a loved one to AIDS (in this case
Riley's lover, David) has often been told, it's rare that a film actually
takes us within this subject rather than simply reporting it. Ultimately,
the film is less a portrait of either man than of their extraordinary grace
in facing death.
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The title comes from Emily Dickinson and the film is filled with the
comings and goings of birds. Spirits outside the window, having come to
take David away, appear as wrens. Like hope, these birds abruptly fly off,
but offer some fleeting consolation to the men awaiting death.
The film is also filled with quotations from poems including Riley's "Via
Della Rosa," written after his lover's death. However, the most resonant
line in the film was uttered by David from his deathbed: "Am I the rose or
part of the rose?" The film's definitive answer is that we are the rose,
that there is no separation between us and that, if we are still, we can
surely feel our connectedness.
Abrahams Wilson softens what might be an overly grim portrait through
sepia-toned, slow motion images of moving water, wind blown trees and
floating roses. Potential cliches, even shots of open sky and
sick men made whole again, are presented with such dignity that there is
little room for cynicism.
Riley himself is a fascinating character, alternately queeny and
authoratative, speaking in strange vocal patterns. He doesn't hold back
when interviewed and seems particularly honest about his alcoholism and its
impact on his relationship with David. His participation in his lover's
death, he explains, was an attempt to make amends. Alternately crying and
laughing, Riley says, "I was ecstatic with duty--it was my spiritual
experience."
Death is, of course, more complicated than that and Riley's poetry reveals
both acceptance and bitterness for a lover who is leaving: "Some of us are
less and less interested/some of us are spending more and more time in
another place," he wrote. To hear Riley's line "..but he is going very
fast now, his tiny body is a blur within a roar" is to be reminded how many
fine voices have been lost to AIDS.
Interestingly, the film is nearly over before Riley addresses his own
mortality. "I'm dying now and I'm not cool with it," he says. "But I don't
act that way because of David." Through witnessing and participating in
his lover's death, Riley seems to have prepared for his own. He died six
months after David. As we see his own ashes being spread in the final
scene, Riley's voice brings the film to a close, expressing gratitude for
his good fortune at having met a man whom he loved.
--Patrick Moore, Executive Director of The Estate Project for Artists With
AIDS
For info about "Hope" contact mail@openeyepictures.com
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"Positive" CD
Long-time New York back-up singer Paul Lockwood recently released his first
solo CD, "Positive," which was recorded to further AIDS awareness and raise
funds for the Gay Men's Health Crisis, The Children's Hope Foundation, and
the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force, all American service organizations.
(Lockwood recently moved from New York to Pittsburgh.) "Positive" features
eleven songs-nine by Lockwood-and was inspired as a memorial to Lockwood's
personal AIDS losses. "It's important for me, as a gay man, to give back to
my community," he says. Many of the songs will be heard in an upcoming indie
film, "The Edifice." The CD is available for $20 online at www.Cdbaby.com.
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AIDS-Arts Education in Asia
The Theatre for Research Education & Empowerment (TREE) in Bangladesh has
developed a drama-based outreach campaign with the theme "Know AIDS for no
AIDS." The one-hour long, traditional folk-theatre-style presentations are
not only informative, but involve the audience in post-performance
discussions and question-answer sessions. Traditional music is the initial
draw for audiences in public places including markets, parks, and train
stations. For more information email Raju Ahmed.
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Call for artists: The Theatre section of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT)
is organising a series of six programs dealing with HIV/AIDS to be initially
held in the Netherlands. The organization is creating an inventory of
professional or community groups, networks, companies and individuals in
Asia, which are active in any of the following fields: (street) theatre and
drama, puppetry, film or video productions, photography, music productions,
and art exhibitions. It would also like information on existing materials
(films, videos, soap serials, music) and where and how to obtain them. For
info visit http://www.kit.nl/ibd/html/acb.htm or
email acb@kit.nl.
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A Night to Remember
I've never been a big fan of the theatrical one-man show, with the
exception of Sandra Bernhard's "Without You I'm Nothing." I thought that
would be the only exception--ever!--but my views changed recently
after seeing "The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me," the film version of David
Drake's renowned one-man show. In addition to winning an Obie Award, Drake's
monologue is also the longest running one-man show in the history of New
York theater. Having only read the play, I have to admit that I was
definitely a bit skeptical when I decided to see the film. Nevertheless,
what I discovered was impressive: an intense, witty production, superbly
acted by Drake, and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Tim Kirkman of "Dear
Jesse" fame.
This semi-autobiographical film of Drake's life takes you on a roller
coaster ride about one gay man's self discovery. Seven monologues, both
heart wrenching and hilarious, offer the audience Drake's first
homosexual kiss with "swim team Tim" and a coming-out experience during
the AIDS crisis in New York City that might be characterized as trial and
error. The "kiss" in question refers to the impact upon Drake of seeing
Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart (1985), one of the first plays to deal with
the devastation of AIDS. This "kiss" ultimately becomes a reality when
Drake meets the legendary Kramer at an ACT-UP demonstration. There are many
fine moments in the production. My favorites include "Why I Go To the Gym,"
which focuses on the obsession with physical appearance within the American
gay community and "12-inch Single," an insider's view of drugs and disco.
Although AIDS is only the background for this coming-out story, it looms
large as a reminder of the epidemic's impact on everything having to do with
homosex in the U.S. a decade ago.
In order to keep this 84-minute film from simply being a document of a
solo-show,
Kirkman's camera- and sound work expand the theatrical frame of the
production, while maintaining its intimacy. But after some time, the rapid
camera movements and careening camera angles make you feel as though you're
on a wild ride from which you might want to escape! So definitely see this
film. Just be sure to bring along some Dramamine.
--Derek Butler, Associate Director of The Estate Project for Artists with
AIDS
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Sign of the Times
Of course almost every conference is a trade show. And the International
AIDS Conference was no exception. Perhaps the saddest and most
Borgesian-named product is the "AIDS Impact Calculator," an Excel
spreadsheet program designed by Lifeworks and unveiled during the show,
albeit in Johannesburg, not Durban. Using it, companies can supposedly
better predict and plan for the impact of HIV/AIDS on their work. If only
those pesky HIV-infection rates would stabilize!
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200008180076.html
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