For the thirtieth annual Day With(out) Art on December 1, 2019, Visual AIDS presented STILL BEGINNING, a program of seven newly commissioned videos responding to the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic by Shanti Avirgan, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Carl George, Viva Ruiz, Iman Shervington, Jack Waters/Victor F.M. Torres, and Derrick Woods-Morrow. Recalling Gregg Bordowitz’s reminder that “THE AIDS CRISIS IS STILL BEGINNING,” the video program resists narratives of resolution or conclusion, considering the continued urgency of HIV/AIDS in the contemporary moment while revisiting resonant cultural histories from the past three decades. STILL BEGINNING screened at 110 venues worldwide, premiering at the Whitney Museum of American Art on December 1, with additional marquee screenings at the Brooklyn Museum in collaboration with The Studio Museum in Harlem, as well as the MCA Chicago and MOCA LA.
Through an experimental collage of video and pictographs, (eye, virus) explores how conversations around disclosure, stigma, and harm reduction shift across generations and from public to private realms. Combining street interviews with footage from a punk show and a mobile testing site, the video centers pleasure and community as it expands the conversation around HIV to include hepatitis C and the opioid epidemic. (eye, virus) extends from documentation of a 2017 public program titled AIDS OS Y Version 10.11.6, and is collaboratively produced with Nikki Sweet.
Commissioned by Visual AIDS for STILL BEGINNING: The 30th Annual Day With(out) Art
visualaids.org/projects/day-without-art-2019
visualaids.org/projects/day-without-art-2019
(eye, virus). 2019. “Visual Aids - Day Without Art.” Screened in December 2019 at 115 venues globally including: Brooklyn Museum in partnership with the Studio Museum in Harlem, New Museum, Queens Museum, Museum of Art and Design (NYC), Grey Art Gallery (NYU), Leslie-Lohman Museum, The LGBT Community Center (NYC), NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, LGBT Network (NY), Ithaca College Center for LGBT Education, Everson Museum of Art, MOCA Grand Avenue Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art LA, Pandemonium Press, Aggregate Space Gallery, California College of the Arts and Arts Research Center, UC Berkeley, Mills College Art Museum, GLBT Historical Society, LYRIC SF, SFMOMA’s Open Space, Palm Springs Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, University of California San Diego, MSU Denver, Hexus Collective, Real Art Ways, Yale University Art Gallery, Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, The Box Gallery, World AIDS Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Krannert Art Museum, International Museum of Surgical Science, Sullivan Galleries SAIC, Illinois State University, Figge Art Museum, PS1 - Public Space One, Kansas State University, Speed Art Museum, LSU Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, Newcomb Art Museum & Carolyn Barber-Pierre Center for Intercultural Life, Maine Center for Electronic Music, rannie Peabody Center, Mead Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums, The Stamp Gallery (UMCP), Ferris State University, College for Creative Studies, Spectrum Center Programming Board, Weisman Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Hood Museum of Art Dartmouth, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson College, Elsewhere Museum, Columbus College of Art & Design, Columbus Museum of Art, Wexner Center for the Arts, University of Toledo, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Allentown Art Museum, F.A.C.T. - Fighting AIDS Continuously Together, Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, The Andy Warhol Museum, Contemporary Art Museum of Puerto Rico, The Art Galleries at TCU, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Artpace San Antonio, Virginia Commonwealth University, Eaton Hotel, Pickford Film Center, Scarlet Ibis Gallery, First Peoples Multicultural Trans & Queer Support Services - The Evergreen State College, Frye Museum + Northwest African American Museum, Chazen Museum of Art, The Wrong Whole, Coletivo Amem/ Sesc Avenida Paulista (Brazil), Esker Foundation (Canada), Calgary Institute for the Humanities (Canada), Art Gallery of Alberta (Canada), Artcite Inc (Canada), Le Hang’art (France), Schwules Museum Berlin, Stäedelschule (Germany), Athens Museum Of Queer Arts, The Metropolitan Complex (Ireland), The Golden Thread Gallery(Ireland), I Candelai (Italy), Ralph Hall (Italy), Totsuka Regional Center (Japan), Tlaxcala Television (Mexico), General Hospital of Tlaxcala (Mexico), Casco Art Institute (Netherlands), Galeria Miejska Arsenał (Poland), Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona, Noaks Ark Göteborg och Västra Götaland (Sweden), Shedhalle Zürich, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Pera Museum (Turkey), The Bower (UK), Superbia at CULTUREPLEX (UK), Newcastle University (UK).