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Screaming in the Streets: AIDS, Art, Activism

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August 3 – September 23, 2017

Opening reception:
Thursday, August 3, 2017
6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

“There is a tendency for people affected by this epidemic to police each other or prescribe what the most important gestures would be for dealing with this experience of loss. I resent that. At the same time, I worry that friends will slowly become professional pallbearers, waiting for each death, of their lovers, friends and neighbors, and polishing their funeral speeches; perfecting their rituals of death rather than a relatively simple ritual of life such as screaming in the streets.”
—David Wojnarowicz

“The growing consciousness is a danger and a disease.”
—Nietzsche

Curated by Greg Ellis

ClampArt and Ward 5B are proud to present “Screaming in the Streets: AIDS, Art, Activism.” The exhibition celebrates the launch of Ward 5B, a new archival and curatorial service.

By 1995 at the height of the epidemic in the United States there were an estimated 48,371 annual AIDS-related deaths. The story of the artistic and activist responses to this medical crisis were marked by intergenerational, communal, as well as individual associations. The AIDS epidemic provided a startling glimpse into the strange connections between the most private of our lives and the most public.

Linked in this way within the context of the exhibition are Kenny Burgess, Peter Hujar, Haoui Montaug, Essex Hemphill, David Wojnarowicz, Dorian Corey, Mark Morrisroe, Assotto Saint, Arthur Russell, Gordon Stevenson, Keith Haring, Reinaldo Arenas, Ethyl Eichelberger, Jimmy De Sana, and many, many others.

Additionally, radical spaces such as the Pyramid Club, PS 122, Danceteria, boybar, s.n.a.f.u., Crisco Disco, Gaiety Theatre, The Club Baths, and other venues became contradictory under the lash of AIDS, serving not only as “safe zones” for the queer community, but also grounds where contact among individuals would propel the spread of this deadly new contagion.

Amidst this unique cauldron of creativity, community, and disease sprang a generation of AIDS activists connected by art, while rooted in the historically radical politics and culture of New York City. The response to the epidemic brought about a clash of ideologies among the actors involved, both philosophical and economic, that is reflected in the artwork and ephemera of the era.

There were many villains and heroes throughout the early years of the epidemic, from the criminal prejudice of the Reagan administration to the epic struggle with the creation of safe sex. “Screaming in the Streets: AIDS, Art, Activism” focuses on the meaning of radical spaces for sexual minorities and reflects upon a generation of lost artists, while illustrating the interconnectedness and collaborative working relationships among them.

Ward 5B is an archival and curatorial service specializing in late 20th-century urban ephemera and art, with a focus on punk aesthetic, radical spaces, performance art, drag, experimental theatre, camp, queercore, and guerrilla/street art projects.

A fully-illustrated catalogue designed by Carlos E. Kempff S. will be available for purchase.

Carlo Ferrarris (b. 1960)

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Carlo Ferraris has a history of using subjects from our daily reality and removing them from it to a certain degree. While many of his photographs, sculptures and videos can be interpreted as a critique on social and cultural history, his works are always conceptual in their intent and reject any clear narrative platform of establishing meaning. The disjunction and opposition add a strange depth to the unfolding occurrences. He affects our senses and understanding in new and unexpected ways, his narrative content loaded with ambiguous irony.

Richard Prince

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Richard Prince is an American painter and photographer most known for copying other photographers’ work. Prince is a controversial artist, and is often sued by others over copyright issues. Prince’s rephotography helped create a new art form—photography of photography—that foreshadowed the era of digital sharing and upended our understanding of a photo’s authenticity and ownership.

Unspoken

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Unspoken is a new portfolio in the Infinity series, an extensive body of work that I have been photographing since 1997, using my unique process of photographing collages of appropriated images extremely out of focus with the camera’s focusing ring set at infinity. Shooting close-up with the setting meant for distance subverts the documentary expectation of photography and turns the camera into a tool for visual distortion.

Like the earlier figurative images in the Infinity series, Unspoken, consists of tableaux that depict indistinct couples in amorphous spaces. However, instead of being together, the figures in Unspoken are often separated in the frame and looking away from each other, suggesting a disconnect or tension between them. As feature, expression and individuality are erased, body language and the visual cues of posture and gesture become the keys to creating the narrative. With individuality eliminated the figures become archetypes and their placement indicates that isolation may exist even when people are physically together. The blur acts as a metaphor for the ambiguity, frustration and lack of clarity so common in human relationships. Some of the images in Unspoken contain three figures. In these triads—a notoriously difficult configuration—the “third wheel” might be a voyeur, a cuckold or merely a lonely individual, jealous of the lovers’ intimacy.

Many of these images contain backgrounds that are appropriated from night photographs made by well-known photographers. These backgrounds often bring the dark sensibilities of the original image from which they came, even after being cut and reconfigured beyond recognition. Others have backgrounds taken from abstract color field painting that may convey the gestural feeling of the original. Extreme de-focusing blurs the edges within the collages, creating an integrated image that appears as if it was taken in the real world. This sleight of hand allows me to conjure a trompe l’oeil world that hovers between the real and the fantastic, where the contrast and harmony of color is the driving force behind a subliminal chromatic psychology. Unspoken reminds us that we can believe something is real, while at the same time knowing it is illusory; that the experience of visual confusion, when the mind is momentarily derailed, is what frees us to respond emotionally to the psychic play depicted. At the same time, I hope the inability to resolve these images compels the viewers to keep looking, mesmerized by the spaces of pure color, and allow themselves to drift into a meditative state.