Immediately following the loss of our dear friend and mentor José Esteban Muñoz, Joshua Lubin-Levy and I proposed this curatorial project with an eye toward the ephemeral. The intensity of absence and a recognition that certain kinds of live possibilities had vanished with José’s death prompted a turn to his 1996 essay, “Ephemera As Evidence.” This introduction to the “Queer Acts” special issue of Women &Performance—selections of which appear in this catalogue—puts forth a possibility in absence, encouraging movement against a strong pull toward paralysis and stagnation in the historical fact of loss.
1) Choose Your preferred Digital Location:a) A Former Generation i) Each of these websites represents a location of cruising before location based iPhone apps. Each of these websites offers advantages over the other, ones not clear to the constructor of this guide, as he has not used them. Sites such as Manhunt have auxiliary features, such as webcam rooms, in case you just want to get off or show off.(1) Manhunt(2) Dudes nude(3) Adam4Adam
How do you make people laugh, make them smile, instill optimism in a community where things seem like they are falling apart at the seams? How do you nurture hope amidst an epidemic?
Eric Rhein met Ramsey McPhillips in 1997 at his exhibition called Eye on a Sparrow at the Froelick Art Gallery InPortland, Oregon. McPhillips was Mark Morrisoe’s boyfriend at the time of his death and facilitated Morrisoe's final self-portrait piece, taking his picture moments after his death in1989. Rhein, having known Morrisoe from the East Village scene of the 1980s, honored him with one of his Leaves memorial pieces.
Twenty two years ago, art collector Wheelock (“Lock”)Whitney discovered Hugh Steers. Walking down Thompson Street, Lock froze when he spotted Hugh's Cobalt Heels through the window of Richard Anderson Fine Arts. With that purchase in 1992 began a decades long commitment to Steers and his art. Collaborating with Lock on Visual AIDS' forthcoming catalogue raissonné of Hugh Steers has deeply expanded my understanding of the artist’s work. From 1984n to 1995, he produced over 475 paintings in addition to an extensive material of drawings. Working so intimately with this material, I have begun to grasp his growth as an artist overtime. While Lock feels the paintings produced between 1993 and 1994 evidence the moment when “Hugh really hit his stride,” I am drawn to earlier works that seem to foreshadow something like the epidemic. While his work from the early1990s deals most directly with AIDS, one can see traces of similar themes in his pieces as early as 1986.
In 1988, Ray Navarro moved to New York City. Although his time was short, Ray made an incredible impact on the LGBTQ community during the height of the AIDS epidemic. An active and fervent member of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition toUnleash Power) and a founding member of DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists), Ray used his camera to capture not only his own life, but also that of the many people who were a part of the fight for rights, responsibility and representation. Ray challenged everyone to become part of direct action and media interference:
I was introduced to the work of Charles Long at almost the exact moment I was introduced to Charles Long the person, though both introductions came with degrees of distance.