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Let the Record Show: Mapping Queer Art and Activism in New York City, 1986-1995

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Let the Record Show: Mapping Queer Art and Activism in New York City, 1986-1995 City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2015 Let The Record Show: Mapping Queer Art and Activism in New York City, 1986-1995 Tara Jean-Kelly Burk Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/534 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] LET THE RECORD SHOW: MAPPING QUEER ART AND ACTIVISM IN NEW YORK CITY, 1986-1995 By TARA BURK A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2015 i ii c 2015 TARA BURK All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Art History in satisfaction of the Dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ___________________ ____________________________________ Date Professor Kevin D. Murphy Chair of Examining Committee ___________________ ____________________________________ Date Professor Claire Bishop Executive Officer ____________________________________ Professor David A. Gerstner ____________________________________ Professor Sally O’Driscoll iv THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK ABSTRACT LET THE RECORD SHOW: MAPPING QUEER ART AND ACTIVISM IN NEW YORK CITY, 1986-1995 Advisor: Kevin D. Murphy Although scholars increasingly scrutinize late twentieth-century American art produced in relation to social movements organized around feminism, anti-racist politics, health activism, and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) identity, scholars usually fail to address the importance of printed ephemera as a medium of artistic expression. Ephemeral materials, such as posters, are cheap to make and print. They are typically distributed illicitly via un-commissioned wheat-paste campaigns in urban public space. Collectives tend to make their designs copyright-free to encourage wide distribution. Particularly in the era before digital social media, these materials were central to the ways in which communities coalesced in urban spaces and created networks nationally though mail distribution. Within art history scholars tend to focus on the formal properties of design and the content of posters. This oversight of the structural capabilities of ephemera (i.e. its different modes of recirculation, its impact on the mobilization of activist projects, and the ways in which its placement and distribution can transform spaces) makes it difficult to grasp the full scope of artists’ contribution to social movements and broader social moments such as the culture wars. My dissertation counteracts the privileging of video art in accounts of AIDS activist art and introduces visual ephemera as an innovative and influential medium by examining three art activist collectives. Whereas video camcorders, a newly available technology in the 1980s, v became a key tool for the documentation of confrontational activism and empowering depictions of people with AIDS, posters were used as a means of communication – within communities impacted by HIV/AIDS and between marginal and mainstream publics. The use of printed materials to address the exigencies of AIDS activism was central to the reinvention of queer art activism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This dissertation systematically discusses three art collectives that represent distinct phases of artistic expression and modes of address. First, the Silence=Death Project, which created an eponymous poster in 1986 to unify and mobilize an activist response to the AIDS crisis. Second, Gran Fury produced sex positive imagery and changed media representations of people with AIDS, and homosexuals in general. The work of these two collectives contributed to the groundswell of sex positive, confrontational activities that emerged around the AIDS activism of ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power formed in New York in 1987). As a result in the early 1990s activism focused more broadly on sexuality, rather than exclusively on HIV/AIDS, emerged in the groups Queer Nation and Dyke Action Machine, explored in chapter 3. The lesbian public art collective fierce pussy, discussed in chapter 4, offered a feminist and lesbian critique of both queer and mainstream representational politics in the 1990s. Finally, the concluding chapter serves as an epilogue and looks at the individual practices of two artists associated with these groups (Gregg Bordowitz and Zoe Leonard) and a late work by fierce pussy. By placing the output of these collectives within the socio-historic, cultural, and aesthetic contexts of New York in the 1980s-1990s, this dissertation is a case study of political art during the divisive culture wars of the late twentieth century. vi My focus on the role of printed ephemera, as a practice of embodied collectivity, foregrounds the importance of an urban context to the development of queer art activism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A prime example of ephemera art and its re- engagement of aesthetics and the political is the collective the Silence=Death Project (1986-1987), which created the poster SILENCE=DEATH in 1986. This work became associated with the rise of “direct-action” activism as ACT UP New York. Visual ephemera were central to the means and ends of direct-action activism, and SILENCE=DEATH is a prime example of this phenomenon. The emblematic poster galvanized gay men and lesbians into a politicized and self-empowered, self-identified queer generation. On the heels of the Silence=Death Project, the collective Gran Fury (1988-1995) organized and became known as the “propaganda ministry” of ACT UP at the height of the ACT UP’s influence (1987-1993). Through commissioned projects Gran Fury expanded cultural activism towards mainstream publics with an array of ephemeral works including billboards and posters. The controversial reception of sexually explicit posters provides a means to examine the political and aesthetic effects of ephemeral reproduction and distribution. Through the slick graphics of AIDS cultural activism, as represented by the Silence=Death Project and Gran Fury, ACT UP’s signature style was created. Yet, these graphics were ultimately challenged on aesthetic and political grounds: conflating AIDS with gay men, too male-focused, too dogmatic, and/or too closely connected with capitalist advertising. In contrast, fierce pussy (1991-1994), asserted the issue of sexual difference through form, with the visual and conceptual rhetoric of its posters, which highlighted the androcentrism associated with Gran Fury. vii By the mid-1990s most direct-action activist art collectives, such as the Silence=Death Project and Gran Fury, had disbanded. Artists from these groups began exploring themes related to their singular experiences of AIDS in individual projects. I argue that the development of two bodies of work – one collectively produced activist body of work, and one individually produced studio-based body of work – is paradigmatic of the generation of queer artists who emerged during the AIDS crisis. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my friends and lovers for their unending support, affirmation, and encouragement: Adi Zolotov, Diana Gibaldi, Jenny Salerno, Shauna Salustri, Bill Green, Terence Adams, Blair Doroshwalter, Giovanna Chesler, Lanita Ward-Jones, Rakiyah Tobias Jones-Ward, Katrina Raben, Ryan Clarke, Kelly Greenfield, Maria Russo, Bridgette Ricketts, Julia Regan, Joey Coldcuts, Michelle Wacker, Mary Beth Romeo, Kelly Komenda, Heath Williams, Ollie Walker, Irit Reinheimer, Thomasin, Lauren Miller, Mariko Wirth, Lauren Talarico, Greta LaFleur, Marian Gibfried, J. Cronin- Connolly, Caitlin Barry, and Sarah Green. Thank you to my family for encouraging me to do well in school and pursue every opportunity to further my education and for supporting me along the way: Dad, Mom, Mary, Tommy, Adrienne, Billy, Johnny, Jackie, Dominic, Nicole, Nana, and Aunt Joanne. Thank you to my mentors, professors, and colleagues at Stony Brook University and CUNY Graduate Center for your generosity and support and intellectual motivation, especially: Andrea Appel, Carol Lees, Kevin D. Murphy, Claire Bishop, Sally O’Driscoll, David Gerstner, Cynthia Chris, David Harvey, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Peter Hitchcock, Rhonda Cooper, Jonathan D. Katz, and Christa Erickson. This dissertation is dedicated to the sexual outlaws and artists who comprise the generation (old and young) of AIDS and queer activists examined in these chapters. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………………v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS …………………………………………………………….....ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ……………………………………………………………xii INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………………..1 CHAPTER 1 FORM FOLLOWS FEELING: THE ROLE OF VISUAL EPHEMERA IN THE RISE OF DIRECT-ACTION AIDS ACTIVISM, 1986-1987 …….40 HIV/AIDS in American Socio-Cultural History………………………41 Fear into Anger: The Rise of Direct-Action AIDS Activism ...............49 SILENCE=DEATH…………………………………………………….53 Form Follows Feeling: the Design of SILENCE=DEATH……………59 SILENCE=DEATH within the Art Historical Context of the 1980s.....69 Let the Record Show ………………………………………………………...75 Contextualizing SILENCE=DEATH within other Visual Responses to AIDS…………………………………………………………………..84 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………89
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