Positive Actions

Positive Actions: the Visual AIDS Competition was an open international exhibition and competition to design a public work of art in response to the AIDS crisis. Organized by Visual AIDS and funded by the Public Art Fund.

Call for artwork read as follows:

"As AIDS has become an increasingly pressing problem, creative artists have struggled to come to terms with the crisis. Humerous and complex questions inevitably arise. What are appropriate resonses? Can art and design make a difference as friends and colleagues live with and die from AIDS? What can we do as artists and citizens in the public arena to inform, move, inspire, and/or provoke audiences? What sort of physical, social, or political sites would be appropriate for a work about AIDS?

Positive Actions: the Visual AIDS Competition invites artists, architects, craft people, designers, film and video makers, performers, photographers, and writers to propose a work related to AIDS for a public site in New York. Possible "sites" might include a public plaza, a corporate lobby, a homeless shelter, a hospital, a billboard, a newspaper, or a public service announcement."

An exhibition of ALL the proposals were held at the Clocktower Gallery, DC Union Headquarters, and the Longwood Gallery, all in New York City. The Public Art Fund, Inc, select one entry, a 30-second PSA by Bing Lee and Garson Yu, to commission and air in the Spring of 1991.