The AIDS Crisis Impact on Activism in Art Museums
The use of visual arts to bring attention to the AIDS
crisis was a highly effective and important strategy
that has left a mark on the work of museums and
response to the visceral response he had to
Photograph courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London
Silence = Death
Silence = Death was a
groundbreaking work of art created
by the Visual AIDs. This piece
flipped the script on what art
about an event or crisis could do,
and sparked conversations and
questions about it, rather than
creating a spectacle that allowed
the viewer to gawk while feeling
safe, distanced, and unaffected.
Silence = Death was made in response
to an exhibition from Nicholas Nixon
at MOMA, that displayed photographs
of emancipated people with AIDS (PWA)
in the final stages of their illness.
visual culture like no other.
Artwork About AIDs by PWA
Barton Benes created Lethal Weapons in
his own blood as an HIV positive
individual. Photograph courtesy of MOMA
“I was in the kitchen cutting parsley, and
I cut a piece of my finger...And I was so
freaked out. Oh my god, I'm going to get A Day Without Art
AIDS.Oh, I already have it. It's my own
blood. It can't hurt me...If I have this In 1989 Visual AIDs created A Day
fear, you can imagine what other ... The Without Art, where almost 800 art
fear that other people have.” (Barton organizations either closed their
Benes, Bloody Real Blood, WNYC) doors or covered certain works of
art to focus on the art community's
losses and stimulate discussion
about the role artists and art
institutions might play in the AIDS
crisis
MOMA then mounted A Space Without
Art in 1991 to commemorate all the
art that would never be made by a
generation devastated by AIDs.
Photographs courtesy of the estate of Barton Lidice Benes