rm | please read this

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.