StoreUpcoming Event
Absence/Presence: 30 Years of Day Without Art Book Launch
Housing Works Bookstore
Date:
Sunday, November 1, 2026 from 2:00pm–4:00pm
Price: Free
Visual AIDS Event
Absence/Presence: 30 Years of Day Without Art Book Launch
Sunday, November 1, 2–4 PM, Housing Works Bookstore
RSVP HERE
Join Visual AIDS to celebrate the launch of Absence/Presence: 30 Years of Day Without Art, a new publication tracing three decades of cultural institutions mobilizing in response to the AIDS crisis.
The afternoon will bring together former Visual AIDS staff and contributors to the book for a series of short conversations spanning the history of Day Without Art. Editors Kyle Croft and Risa Puleo will reflect on the project’s emergence and its first decade; Amy Sadao and Nelson Santos will discuss its evolution through the 2000s; and Ted Kerr and Elizabeth Koke will consider Day Without Art from the 2010s to the present. Together, the conversations will reflect on the people who sustained the project, and how its strategies have changed alongside the AIDS epidemic.
Books will be available for purchase at the event. Absence/Presence is also available for preorder online through Visual AIDS Store.
About the Book
This landmark volume resurfaces the history of Day Without Art, a day of action and mourning in response to the ongoing AIDS crisis, organized by Visual AIDS and observed by thousands of museums, universities and galleries since 1989. Conceived amid the culture wars of the late 1980s, Day Without Art marked a decisive shift in how art institutions understood their social and political responsibilities, calling on them to confront the AIDS crisis publicly. What began as a call for institutions to close or remove artworks—using absence to give presence to the losses of the AIDS crisis—quickly evolved into a networked platform for socially engaged art, ranging from posters and stickers to net art, public projections and national television broadcasts.
Spanning more than 300 pages, this publication brings together a chorus of critical essays, firsthand reflections and previously unpublished archival material documenting three decades of Visual AIDS’ artistic commissions and institutional collaborations. Together, these contributions offer long-overdue recognition of the labor and political negotiation behind the program, demonstrating the significance of Day Without Art within histories of institutional critique and social practice.
304 pp, hardcover, 12 x 9.5 inches
Edited with text by Kyle Croft, Risa Puleo. Preface by Robert Atkins. Foreword by Esther McGowan. Text by Douglas Crimp, Ariel Goldberg, Roderick A. Ferguson, Claire Grace, Cait McKinney, Theodore (ted) Kerr, Elizabeth Koke. Conversations with Amy Sadao, Nelson Santos, Alex Fialho, Alexandra Juhasz, Vivian Crockett, Jawanza James Williams.
Designed by Practise
Published by Visual AIDS and [NAME] Publications, 2026
ISBN: 9798988981749
Kyle Croft is the Executive Director of Visual AIDS. He has edited monographs on Darrel Ellis, Frederick Weston, and curator William Olander, and curated Ministry: Reverend Joyce McDonald at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (2025) and Cell Count at La MaMa Galleria (2018).
Theodore (Ted) Kerr is a writer and educator. He is the co-author of We Are Having This Conversation Now: The Times of AIDS Cultural Production (Duke University Press, 2022, with Alexandra Juhasz). He is a founding member of the collective What Would an HIV Doula Do? He teaches at The New School and Manhattan University.
Elizabeth Koke is a writer, performer, and organizer based in New York City. She is Vice President of Brand Strategy at Housing Works where she has worked for the past decade.
Risa Puleo is an independent curator interested in how artists intervene in social structures. Puleo holds master's degrees from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and Hunter College and is a doctoral candidate in Northwestern University’s art history program. She teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has written for Art in America, Art Papers, Art21, Asia Art Pacific, Hyperallergic, Modern Painters, and other art publications. Risa teaches art history at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Amy Sadao is a Philadelphia-based independent curator and partner of Sadao Ghosh, a consultancy supporting nonprofit community and art organizations and leaders. Previously she directed ICA Philadelphia, Denniston Hill, and Visual AIDS.
Nelson Santos is an artist, curator, academic and arts professional. He is an adjunct professor at Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts. Santos has guided the vision of non-profit art organizations with an LGBTQ+ and social justice mission, including Visual AIDS as executive director; Leslie-Lohman Museum as interim director of curatorial programs; Fire Island Artist Residency as a board member; and Queer|Art as board president.