The Unfashionability of AIDS with Steed Taylor I'm six years old waiting for a baby-sitter to arrive so my parents can go out for a fancy evening sans kids. As my Mother dresses, feeds us, put on her make up, reminds us about bath and bedtime rules, I'm questioning her non-stop: Why are you wearing black; How come your dress is so long; Why is it shiny; Why do you wear a girdle? She stops and looks at me, "It's fashion. Certain things are popular. Certain things are exactly right ...for a specific time." Fast forward: grades one through 12, college, college, work, more college, here and there sex and love, then AIDS. The story stops, changing into a world turned upside down. Research, compassion and understanding catch up. Eventually, the story isn't as bad as it was: The big dark cloud has a silver lining-at least for those who respond to treatment. So here we are in a post-AIDS--well, a-not-as-bad-as-it-was, post-AIDSish--discussion about Art and AIDS and I'm thinking about my Mom getting dressed to go out. The unfashionability of AIDS in the arts, novelty versus relevance, passive spectators, active agents...Hmmm...hemlines, décolletage, bias-cut satin... Aren't most occupations that deal with culture influenced by fashion? Clothing aside, the way of writing, behaving, or thinking right here, right now, influences what art is made and shown. That's what makes art relevant. AIDS was a nightmare and artists responded appropriately. An amazingly brave and raw passion erupted as artists struggled to understand the incomprehensible. We as a people, and as a culture, desperately needed to make some sense of the senselessness of AIDS. We needed art that screamed as loud as the pain, was as human as the loss, as fearsome as the virtus. As an HIV+ artist, that was the kind of art I made as did so many others. The cultural climate--the fashion-allowed it, even demanded it. Nothing different could be a part of the dialogue... at that specific moment. So to be in the mix, to have our voices heard and our art seen, we followed the fashion. We made art that was bold and in your face, with a hemline to get noticed, a cut that presented the body as it hadn't been seen before, in the depressing and angry sanguine colors of the time. We not only participated in, but often helped lead, the public discourse on AIDS. But times have changed. That was then, this is now. Sure, AIDS is not over, not even close, but it is much better than it was, at least here in the First World. The emergency of AIDS is now seen as a chronic but manageable problem like so many others. Art fashion has changed too, the stridency and the shrieking is not much appreciated today. A more measured voice coupled with a cinematic presentation seems to be a popular entree into the public eye. And a spread in "Vanity Fair" won't hurt either. Perhaps the American economic boom has dulled the cutting edge? Today, its sharpness seems only to be measured by sales and gallery affiliations. Does a lack of emergency also mean a lack of passion? Maybe so, or at least passion with a capital "P." But before I sound like AIDS is as out as the raccoon coat and Marcelled hair, let me assure you it's not. There are many artists--like myself--still using AIDS specific content in their work. Check out Rina Banerjee or Robert Gober in the current Whitney "Biennial" for proof. Certainly the imagery is less direct than before. Today, AIDS content seems to be more poetic, less overt, more suited to the here and now. When I see current work that deals with issues about the body, loss, longing, or death, I feel like I'm seeing work with roots in the AIDS-art of a decade ago. Didn't we open the door to the acceptability of these themes? On the runway of popular culture, we were divas; we had our day in the klieg lights. And like any grand dame of fashion we are still there. Occasionally front and center, more often backstage and behind the scene, influencing work being produced today. When you see a new diva step onto the catwalk, look closely. You might experience a little bit more of this legacy than you realize. Steed Taylor is an artist who has shown extensively in the New York area, as well as in solo shows at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the Ambrosino Gallery in Miami and Il Ponte Contemporanea in Rome. His art has been discussed in publications ranging from "Art In America" to "Time Out New York". A long-term survivor of more than 15 years, he has also helped provide support services for the infected, managed volunteer groups, and served on the board of Visual AIDS. The symposium "panelists'" - David Román, Steed Taylor, Barbara Hunt and Thomas Sokolowski