Art AIDS America ran from December 1, 2016 (World AIDS Day) through April 2, 2017, at the Alphawood Gallery in Chicago. We wish to express our deep gratitude to the thousands of people who visited this remarkable exhibition, as well as the many people and institutions that helped make it possible. Please explore our Exhibition website, which is preserved here. Among many other resources, the website contains video documentation of some of the extraordinary programs that took place over the course of the exhibition.
A catalogue of the Chicago version of Art AIDS America will be published later in 2018. This will be a companion volume to the original catalogue published by Tacoma Art Museum and the University of Washington Press, and will highlight the additional works added for the Chicago presentation as well as the extensive programming organized by Alphawood Gallery during the exhibition.
Art AIDS America was organized by Tacoma Art Museum in partnership with The Bronx Museum of the Arts. The exhibition is co-curated by Jonathan David Katz, Director, Visual Studies Doctoral Program at the University at Buffalo (The State University of New York), and Rock Hushka, Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary and Northwest Art at Tacoma Art Museum. The national tour is supported by the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art and Gilead Sciences, Inc. The exhibition and catalogue have been made possible by support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
In Chicago, this exhibition is made possible by the Alphawood Foundation, a Chicago-based, grant-making private foundation working for an equitable, just and humane society. The exhibition will be presented in a new temporary space, the Alphawood Gallery, renovated for this purpose, located in the Foundation’s headquarters building.
Roger Brown — Peach Light, 1983 — oil on canvas, Overall: 72 x 48 1/2"
© The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Brown family
Courtesy of Kavi Gupta. Photo: James Connolly
Art AIDS America Chicago
This groundbreaking exhibition underscores the deep and unforgettable presence of HIV in American art. It introduces and explores the whole spectrum of artistic responses to AIDS, from the politically outspoken to the quietly mournful, surveying works from the early 1980s to the present.
Art AIDS America concludes its national tour at the new Alphawood Gallery, established for this presentation by the Alphawood Foundation, at 2401 North Halsted Street (at Fullerton Avenue). The exhibition opened on World AIDS Day, Thursday, December 1, and continues through Sunday, April 2, 2017. Admission is free.