Art of Death: April 2008 Archives
Links to his past shows:
And here's more info on the Silence = Death slogan.
From the Encyclopedia of AIDS:
“The pink triangle was established as a pro-gay symbol by activists in the United States during the 1970s. Its precedent lay in World War II, when known homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps were forced to wear inverted pink triangle badges as identifiers, much in the same manner that Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star of David. Wearers of the pink triangle were considered at the bottom of the camp social system and subjected to particularly harsh maltreatment and degradation. Thus, the appropriation of the symbol of the pink triangle, usually turned upright rather than inverted, was a conscious attempt to transform a symbol of humiliation into one of solidarity and resistance. By the outset of the AIDS epidemic, it was well-entrenched as a symbol of gay pride and liberation.
In 1987, six gay activists in New York formed the Silence = Death Project and began plastering posters around the city featuring a pink triangle on a black background stating simply ‘SILENCE = DEATH.’ In its manifesto, the Silence = Death Project drew parallels between the Nazi period and the AIDS crisis, declaring that ‘silence about the oppression and annihilation of gay people, then and now, must be broken as a matter of our survival.’ The slogan thus protested both taboos around discussion of safer sex and the unwillingness of some to resist societal injustice and governmental indifference. The six men who created the project later joined the protest group ACT UP and offered the logo to the group, with which it remains closely identified.
Since its introduction, the ‘SILENCE = DEATH’ logo has appeared in a variety of manifestations, including in neon as part of an art display and on a widely worn button. It was also the forerunner of a range of parallel slogans such as ‘ACTION = LIFE’ and ‘IGNORANCE = FEAR’ and an entire genre of protest graphics, most notably including a bloodstained hand on a poster proclaiming that ‘the government has blood on its hands.’ Owing in part to its increasing identification with AIDS, the pink triangle was supplanted in the early 1990s by the rainbow as the dominant image of ‘gay pride.’ By force of analogy, however, the rainbow itself has, in some countries, become an image associated with AIDS.”
Figuratively and possibly literally.Artist Wayne Martin Belger has created a camera that contains blood that is HIV positive. The blood is used as a filter through which images of people diagnosed with HIV are photographed by Belger.$20 says he has at least one Danzig album in his collection.
A pretty potent and might I say high-risk effort by the photographer, and candid undertaking on the part of the subject.
Click here to read more and see images made using the camera.
(Via OMG via Greydon)
This just in, via Artforum.com:
(from Jon Knowles)
GREGOR SCHNEIDER SEEKS SOMEONE WILLING TO DIE FOR ARTNot awesome.
Never one to shy away from controversy, the artist Gregor Schneider has begun a search for someone willing to die as part of a performance. “I want to display a person dying naturally in the piece or somebody who has just died,” he told the Art Newspaper's Gareth Harris. “My aim is to show the beauty of death.” Schneider has noted his desire to stage the performance at the Haus Lange museum in Krefeld, Germany, also saying that if the museum refuses, he will stage the performance in a studio space in his hometown of Rheydt, also in Germany. The museum declined to comment.
(from Jon Knowles)
Do you love facts? Do your friends characterize you as a "numbers person"? Do you have three minutes of your life that you'll never get back that you'd like to spend learning about death? Who doesn't? The whole idea of never getting time back will be moot in the next 50 years anyways. So enjoy!
David Shrigley is Amazing (notice the capitalization)! Like the cat above, his works are dark, twisty, chuckle finding, thought curdling, manifestations of "what's going on these days" and they make up for the usual tedium encountered in the realm of fine art.
We've posted no image here because we believe you need to see these powerful images with their supporting texts. Sensitivity disclaimer: the images may be upsetting to some viewers.
View the project at the following links:
