The Third Annual Visual AIDS Research Symposium: Archival Research Fellows / Aesthetics of Ruination

This symposium celebrates the lives and legacies of artists documented in the Visual AIDS Archive, the largest collection of images and biographical information about HIV-positive artists.

The third iteration of this annual event will open with presentations by Visual AIDS research fellows, who will introduce the lives and work of three underrecognized artists who died of AIDS-related causes: Frank Green (1957–2013), Miss Kitty Litter (1962–1995), and Sergio Hernandez Frances (1964–1995).

The second part of the symposium is organized by Annette-Carina van der Zaag and Rory Crath, in collaboration with Visual AIDS, as part of the Terra Foundation for American Art–supported project Aesthetics of Ruination. The project began as a collective exploration of the work of two artists lost to AIDS—Robert Farber (1948–1995), whose Western Blot series invokes the imagery of the bubonic plague, and Ronald Lockett (1965–1998), whose assemblages incorporate salvaged industrial materials. Scholars and artists who participated in the project will invite the audience to engage the HIV/AIDS archive as an archive of feeling and sensing. Through presentations and performances—with each one refracting differently its own relation to the sculptural works and practices of these artists—the Aesthetics of Ruination collective will explore how “feeling backwards and waywards” in time can envision alternative, more livable futures.

The research symposium is planned in conjunction with the exhibitions In the Shadow of the American Dream and 500 Years currently on view in MoMA’s second-floor collection galleries.

Registration
Admission is free, and RSVP is required.
This program takes place in person at MoMA, with an option to join online via Zoom.

Register to join us in person at MoMA
Register to join us online via Zoom