please read this

[rm]

New York artist Keith Haring’s last completed work in the weeks before his death by AIDS at age 31 in 1990 [was] titled “The Life of Christ” and radiant in gold leaf, it crowns its anguished panorama of suffering with a pair of angels ascending to heaven — all rendered in Haring’s whimsical, graffiti-inspired iconography. Even as he was succumbing to a ruthless disease that had provoked indifference and cruelty rather than compassion from too many of his fellow citizens, Haring, somehow, could still see angels. You needn’t be a believer to be inspired by the beauty of his vision.

Not every artist struck down by AIDS could hit so generous a note. Such was the case with David Wojnarowicz, a painter, author and filmmaker, who, like Haring, was a fixture of the East Village arts scene in the 1980s. When his mentor and former lover, the photographer Peter Hujar, fell ill with AIDS in 1987, Wojnarowicz created a video titled “A Fire in My Belly” to express both his grief and his fury. As in Haring’s altarpiece, Christ figures in Wojnarowicz’s response to the plague — albeit in a cryptic, 11-second cameo. A crucifix is besieged by ants that evoke frantic souls scurrying in panic as a seemingly impassive God looked on.

Hujar died in 1987, and Wojnarowicz would die at age 37, also of AIDS, in 1992. This is now ancient, half-forgotten history.

You should know this ancient, half-forgotten history. You should also know what "A Fire in My Belly" actually was, what it contained, why it was on display, and how homophobia and cowardice led to its being yanked from the Smithsonian exhibit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/opinion/12rich.html

The Culture War of the 80s and early 90s was the world I grew up. I learned about Mapplethorpe's work and the attendant controversy in a clubbing magazine which published one of his self-portraits. I thought he was beautiful and so read the piece.

Keith Haring belonged to New York. Before we knew his name or that it was a Radiant Baby we knew the Radiant Baby because it seemed to be all over the subway system, the graffiti aspect a reminder of the nightmare we New Yorkers had emerged from in the state of our city in the 1970s and the earlier part of the 1980s.

My parents are artists. Took me to Soho all the time. Showed me galleries. Explained that cool people and gay people went to parties on Sunday nights, because art galleries are closed on Monday.

When Haring opened his store in New York, they bought me a satin jacket, loud and neon and featuring his designs. It was valuable then and probably worth a fortune now, even as mine is quite faded.

I was in the bathroom in my parents home getting dressed to go out with friends when the news announced that Keith Haring had died. I was putting on a earring. My hands slipped and it fell in the toilet.

I went to DC for school. Protested AIDS so much. Kept ACT-UP posters on foam core in my dorm room so I was always prepared. Ronald Regan was our devil. My parents hated visiting me at school. I said I was keeping the posters for a friend; I had more space.

This is, for me, all still happening right now. This is the moment that never ended. The bullying I can't get over. The fear and epicness and destruction that defined my understanding of the world.

These artists should not be half-forgotten history -- not their work, not their personal entanglements. Life is messy. Art is brutal. Both are joyous.

I've spent more time than I even understand this year explaining to people what it was like growing up during the AIDS crisis (as opposed to whatever it is now). I shouldn't have to explain. Know your history.

My personal stories and recollections of it have nothing to do with what happened, but I hope it helps people who weren't there get that yes, this was real, that it really happened and we were all furious and despairing and terrified. That it left us with scars and languages and metaphors. That even forgotten it is unerasable.

I was a child, who needed a cause other than my own. And yet the cause was my own.

Please read. Please know what happened.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I do read, and I appreciate your writing. You open windows into a place I wasn't at the time, and remind me that some things just never end.

It starts at the top

[pingback-bot.livejournal.com]

User supergee referenced to your post from It starts at the top (http://supergee.livejournal.com/2300982.html) saying: [...] William "Hollywood is run by secular Jews who like anal sex" Donohue. Thanx to , who remembers [...]

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Blogging this. Thanx.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I cried, reading that. I felt that sick sort of helpless rage.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I've made it my business to learn about AIDS and how it affects me and my history as a queer person and as someone with (Jewish) South African heritage and family and it really is different for us.

I've found it difficult to explain to others that AIDS has shaped the world we inhabit in such a profound way.

Thank you for the link.

[sweetevangeline.livejournal.com]

I have read every word of this and I will remember.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

It feels like yesterday to me. Has it really been forgotten?

That's an excellent reminder for me to speak to people, to make sure that it never is. Thank you.

[eac.livejournal.com]

I read this, and of course I remember. My own history of the AIDS crisis has to do with lost acquaintances, Virginia, and hateful rednecks, so these details you remember are actually new to me.

[kshandra]

I remember when they still called it GRID.

You'll be pleased (I hope) to know that KFOG's Morning Show reported on CB1 Gallery's decision to run the film in its entirety this weekend.

I remember. I will not forget.

[kyana.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. I linked it to my facebook.

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

I learned most of my history of this era through fiction, particularly Angels in America and Peg Kerr's The Wild Swans. I don't know how readily available TWS is these days, but AiA certainly isn't hard to find.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

TWS is pretty easy to find - Amazon has it new, Powell's has it used.

I was going to recommend it as well; learning about history through fiction works for me, and for me words are better than pictures.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Wow, the foxnews.com article I read about this is the first time I can think of that I've read a Fox news site. I grew up in a consciously non-political mainstream conservative Protestant tradition and it's always a little shocking to me (still) to read about people using Christianity to justify political perspectives (I realize how ridiculously naive that sounds, still, every time it's jarring). Also Fox was going on about 'during the Christmas season!' when in my mind it's Easter that's the serious religious holiday.

The whole thing is really troubling, somehow I thought we were past this level of cultural response, though I'm realizing part of me expects it, and that's the crazy internalization talking, isn't it?

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember that time VERY vividly. In Tampa, what I heard most often was homophobic bullshit, but I managed to zoom in on the real stories...

And I had Keith Haring postcards all over my refrigerator in my first apartment. He was my hero. :-)

[kiia.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting about this. I hadn't known about it at all.

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting about those artists, the majority of whom I didn't know. I checked out the Hide/Seek exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery online and it was extremely powerful. It saddens me that people at other museums have been heartless and homophobic enough to prevent the public from seeing the personal expression of anyone, regardless of who they are or where they've come from (literally and figuratively). Art is supposed to be more important than all that, and no person should be allowed to corrupt it with h/her own personal bigotry.

[thinking-lotus.livejournal.com]

I remember David (loved his work) and Peter (such great photos)and Keith (have some of his stuff--giveaways from openings) and I am still in mourning for them every day. Thanks for writing about this.

[sanat.livejournal.com]

Thank you for telling your story.

They pulled A Fire in the Belly on World Aids Day, which I think was intentional, a complete slap in the face.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Yes.

I've mentioned before here that I've been struggling with the same thing, more or less, for months. I am just realizing, as I look around, how very crucial this era was in forming not only my politics, but my very core morality, my viewpoint on the world. And how where this isn't shared by other communities and other generations, because what they saw, before and after, was different. This week it was attitudes about the chronically ill. It's so hard to even articulate. This is the moment that never ended indeed.

[austengirl.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for this, I'll be RTing the article.

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

I remember first reading about AIDS in a newspaper article when I was in high school. I remember reading about Mapplethorpe and knowing about Keith Haring and his art in college. They were/are very important people in history. I still think of them from time to time. Thank you for bringing them back into focus. Artists open doors, push boundaries, make us think about important things even when we don't want to and we need to. This is what they did.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking to this.

Sometimes I just look at shit like this and wail to myself, "NOOOO YOU CANNOT HAVE JESUS I WANT TO TAKE HIM BACK" and then I cry a lot.

Christ's is one of many narratives and to use his to invalidate anothers' narrative of suffering or grace is blasphemous and also a dick move.

I know all these things, intellectually, but I'm still taken aback every time. I kind of don't want to ever lose that sense of horror.

And a follow-up:

[kshandra]

Warhol Foundation Demands Reinstatement of Censored Art Work or Will Cease Funding all Smithsonian Institution Exhibitions

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. I hadn't heard about the Hide/Seek exhibit. While I'm saddened, I'm not particularly surprised that it drew criticism, but I'm surprised the museum pulled the piece.

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Reposting (albeit belatedly) and sharing a bit of my own history - the censorship is something that's happened all too often as well.

I remember so much of this, albeit poorly, and differently in some ways. But I think part of it is the age difference; I was going to some of the parties your parents were talking about. Damn I miss that over the top lifestyle and the people who lived (and died) it.

[azurelunatic]

Keith Haring was such a tremendous influence on one of my own artistic styles. My art teacher taught him, and even though I think she said he died of AIDS, she didn't mention (because we were eleven, twelve, thirteen) and we didn't ask, that he was gay. It was implied, because of the AIDS, but I never made that connection, I never picked up that AIDS then meant probably gay. It just wasn't part of my world as an isolated kid in Alaska. I'd internalized the "anyone can get it" message pretty hard, so I missed the part where the people who got it early weren't just anyone, and I missed the part where the gay community wasn't "them", it was "us", until I was fourteen.