Opening: How AIDS Changed American Art

Art AIDS America Chicago Presents: How AIDS Changed American Art--An Illustrated Lecture with opening performance by Avery R. Young and Disruption/Repression: How AIDS Changed America panel with performance by Joseph Ravens at the Alphawood Gallery. Free and open to the public. -------------------------------------- How AIDS Changed American Art--An Illustrated Lecture with opening performance by Avery R. Young Widely considered merely a tragic tangent within US culture, AIDS has in fact been one of the most powerful shaping forces in American art since the 1980's. The repression of AIDS' role in the making of American culture keeps in line the longstanding repression of AIDS in general-but repression is nonetheless, the sign of great power. In this talk, Jonathan Katz illustrates how AIDS has fundamentally shifted the American cultural landscape, exploring not only the manifold losses AIDS has inflicted, but also how, in response to both AIDS and the prejudice it engendered, a plague has rewritten both the form and content of American art. Delivered by Jonathan Katz, co-curator of Art AIDS America, and Director of Visual Studies Doctoral Program at SUNY. Opening will be a spoken word performance by Avery R. Young -------------------------------------- Disruption/Repression: How AIDS Changed America panel with performance by Joseph Ravens. Medicine, politics, art, activism, sex, culture-everything in the US changed after the first reports of a mysterious illness in 1981. In the face of intense fear, repression, and prejudice, brave activists took to the streets in protest while enduring great loss; their goal was to create change, and ultimately, find compassion for the suffering and departed. This panel of an ACT-UP Chicago founder, artists, activists, scholars, and medical and museum professionals will discuss the response to HIV/AIDS at the height of the crisis, how it relates to today, and how it informs their work. The panel will feature: Dr. Renslow Sherer - Professor of Medicine, University of Chicago Robert Vazquez-Pacheco - artist and member of Gran Fury Peter Carpenter - Independent Choreographer and Associate Professor at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago Mary Patten - Professor of Visual and Critical Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Jeanne Kracher - Executive Director Crossroads Fund Stephanie Stebich - Executive Director, Tacoma Art Museum. The panel will be moderated by Lora Branch, long-time Public Health Advocate. Chicago-based Defibrillator Gallery Director Joseph Ravens presents Condom Cloud. _______________________ About Art AIDS America Chicago: This groundbreaking exhibition underscores the deep and unforgettable presence of HIV in American art. Art AIDS America Chicago is free and open to the public, exhibited from Dec. 1, 2016 - April 2, 2017. Art AIDS America was organized by Tacoma Art Museum in partnership with The Bronx Museum of the Arts.

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