In the times of AIDS at MAMCS Museum

From the early 1980s, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus epidemic (HIV) and AIDS, its terminal stage, ran out of control in the United States and France before spreading worldwide. Yet this health crisis also turned out to be a crisis in artistic conceptions, one that has continued to produce new creative forms until the present day. While the virus was decimating a generation of creators, male and female, writers, choreographers, film makers and visual artists, the disease, either explicitly or implicitly, became part of their works. Among artists, there emerged committed and even militant voices, with struggles being fought for greater tolerance, visibility and recognition of minority rights, struggles in which their work played a major part.

The exhibition In the Days of AIDS speaks of a time that is still with us and in which, despite great medical advances, the epidemic has not yet been overcome. The last forty years have seen intermingled periods of fear, bereavement, courage, mutual support and hope, all sustained by creative art forms whose power continues to fascinate us. In the Days of AIDS is a multidisciplinary exhibition presenting four decades of creation in which the visual arts, literature, music, cinema and dance have joined forces with scientific research, popular culture and the decisive action of associations. Conceived as a chrono-thematic progression plunging us into a tumult of sensations and questioning, the exhibition is divided into different sections. They show how the different forces have come together to combat what, in the words of Élisabeth Lebovici, is not an illness but a “scandal.”

Along the exhibition space, we find works by Maurice Béjart, Sophie Calle, Johan Creten, General Idea, Nan Goldin, Felix González-Torres, Hervé Guibert, John Hanning, Keith Haring, Klaus Nomi, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Bill T. Jones, Barthélémy Toguo, David Wojnarowicz and more. Alongside these are audiovisual montages from the INA (French National Audiovisual Institute), objects and archives recalling the AIDS epidemic, as well as something more unexpected in a museum, the presence of medical and associative structures. In fact, the exhibition is accompanied by a Permanence (Information Service) giving visitors the chance to talk to representatives of the health and solidarity sector, prevention specialists and volunteers from various associations – all of this taking place within the confines of the museum, thus asserting its civic engagement in the community.

General Curatorship: Estelle Pietrzyk, Chief Heritage Curator, in charge of MAMCS.
Research Advisors: Thibaud Croisy, author and stage director; Didier Roth-Bettoni, film historian. Research Team: Anna Millers, Thierry Laps, Coralie Pissis, Alexandre Zebdi-Libot, Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg
Scenography: Roll Office, Ian Ollivier and Lucie Rebeyrol
Graphic Design: Studio Plastac