'AIDS - Based on a True Story'

Theodore Kerr

doi:10.16995/ddl.341

Abstract

AIDS: Based on a True Story is an exhibition curated by Vladimir ? ajkovac for the German Hygiene Museum. The foundation for the exhibition was the museum ’ s extensive collection of AIDS posters from around the world, from which ? ajkovac added other historic objects, art works and activist memorabilia. The exhibition looks at HIV/AIDS through the lens of media and representation. In this article writer and organizer Theodore Kerr explores the exhibition putting it in conversation with contemporary representations of HIV/AIDS and questioning the role that nostalgia plays in how AIDS is understood in media.

Highlights

Brooklyn based writer and organizer whose work focuses on HIV/AIDS
The first wave begins around 2008, with a revival, of sorts, of AIDS-related media. This is exemplified through the creation and reception of documentary films like Last Address (2010, dir. by Ira Sachs), We Were Here (2011, dir. by Bill Weber and David Weissman), How to Survive a Plague (2012, dir. by David France), United in Anger (2012, dir. by Jim Hubbard); museum exhibitions like ‘AIDS in New York: The First 5 Years’ (2013, New-York Historical Society) and ‘Why We Fight: Remembering AIDS Activism’ (2013, New York Public Library); retrospectives on General Idea (2011, Musée d’Art Moderne), Gran Fury (2012, 80WSE, NYU), and Frank Moore (2012, Grey Art Gallery, NYU); gallery shows such as the remount of Rosalind Solomon’s ‘Portraits in the Time of AIDS, 1 Theodore Kerr, ’AIDS – Based on a True Story’, Dandelion 7.1 (Summer 2016)
For I will say, responsible work coming out of the Revisitation balances experiences of nostalgia with the reality of pain, and loss. These various waves of Revisitation come after something I call the Second Silence, a period that begins with the release of life prolonging medication in 1996, and comes to a close with the start of the Revisitation, as well as the 2008 Swiss Statement, a paper issued by the Swiss Federal Commission for HIV/AIDS which stated: ‘An HIV-positive individual not suffering from any other STD and adhering to antiretroviral therapy (ART) with a completely suppressed viremia [...] does not transmit HIV sexually, i.e., ‘Aids – Based on a True Story’

Summary

Theodore Kerr

A golden afternoon in lower Manhattan is seen a few stories above the street. A thin white woman clings for her life to the side of a skyscraper. For I will say, responsible work coming out of the Revisitation balances experiences of nostalgia with the reality of pain, and loss These various waves of Revisitation come after something I call the Second Silence, a period that begins with the release of life prolonging medication in 1996, and comes to a close with the start of the Revisitation, as well as the 2008 Swiss Statement, a paper issued by the Swiss Federal Commission for HIV/AIDS which stated: ‘An HIV-positive individual not suffering from any other STD and adhering to antiretroviral therapy (ART) with a completely suppressed viremia [...] does not transmit HIV sexually, i.e., he/she cannot pass on the virus through sexual contact.’ In between these two medical advancements was 12 years of silence.

Inside the Exhibition

AIDS Nostalgia?

Conclusion

Works Cited