Share Your Vision

Exhibition

Share Your Vision was a national art contest and exhibition, presented by Visual AIDS to help raise awareness of the impact of CMV retinitis on the lives of people with HIV. The exhibition featured 21 artists selected by a jury, including:

Amos Beaida • Barton Lidice Benes • William Donovan • David Faulk • Michael Golden • Max Greenberg • horea • Larry JaBell • David Knudsvig • Elliot Linwood • timothy Lonergan • Yves Moralex • Robert O'Donnell • Luna Luis Ortiz • Austin Prentiss • Eric Rhein • Thomas R. Somerville • Steed Taylor • Becky Trooter • Carlos Visintine • Kurt Weston

The exhibition was featured at Artists Space in New York City. A full color catalog is also available.

Competition

The national Share Your Vision art contest was juried by Dr. Ellen Birenbaum, Medical Director of The Robert Mapplethorpe Residential Treatment Facility at Beth Israel Medical Center; Debra Singer, Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art; Moukhtar Kocache, Director of Visual & Media Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; Yona Backer, Program Officer, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; and Ernesto Pujol, Artist. Each of the selected artists were awarded a cash prize. The art contest and exhibition was sponsored by Roche.

CMV Retinitis

Cytomegalovirus or CMV is a virus that is acquired by many or most in early adulthood. When the immune defenses are down, the virus may cause infection and the infection may be almost anyplace: the eye, the brain, the esophagus, the bowel or the lung. In patients with HIV infection with severe suppression of the immune status, CMV often causes infection in the back of the eye or the retina, resulting in CMV retinitis. This causes changes in vision and may actually lead to blindness in the absence of adequate treatment.