It Was Vulgar & It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic

Editor Lowery debuts with a fascinating study of how art galvanized AIDS activism in the 1980s and ’90s. He documents how a small group of activists in New York City developed the symbol of a pink triangle on a black background accompanied by the text “Silence=Death” in 1985 and how the advocacy group ACT UP raised funds by selling T-shirts and buttons emblazoned with the graphic. The image’s “widespread acceptance,” Lowery writes, “also articulated that a community actually existed.” Other early artworks associated with ACT UP included a Pride parade float designed to look like a concentration camp and a 1987 installation at the New Museum of Contemporary Art that was inspired by the Nuremberg trials. The group behind that exhibit became Gran Fury, an affiliate of ACT UP New York focused on art. Lowery thrillingly recounts Gran Fury’s use of advertising-influenced “slick aesthetic” art as protest propaganda, including the insertion of a fake front page into real editions of the New York Times and “Kissing Doesn’t Kill” posters plastered on buses in New York City and San Francisco. Throughout, Lowery provides crucial context about the history of the AIDS epidemic and draws vivid sketches of key players in Gran Fury. The result is a captivating look at the power of art as a political tool. (Apr.)