Visual AIDS is proud to partner with the New Museum, our host for the Fourth Annual Research Symposium, continuing the longstanding partnership between the two organizations.

The symposium celebrates the lives and legacies of artists documented in the Visual AIDS Archive, the largest collection of images and biographical information about HIV-positive artists. Through research and archival work, Visual AIDS repairs gaps in the cultural record created by the stigma of AIDS, bringing renewed attention to artists and histories that have too often been overlooked or lost.

This year’s event opens with Visual AIDS Community Archivist Jacs Rodriguez highlighting recent initiatives within the archive, including the David Hirsh Tapes collection. Visual AIDS Research Fellows will share research about three artists lost to AIDS: Alex Lenczycki on printmaker and book artist Gin Louie, Chava Maeve Krivchenia on painter Garland Eliason-French, and Diogene Artiles on painter Miguel Ferrando.

A special session co-presented with Rhizome will explore the intersections of the internet, personal computing, and AIDS cultural history. Helena Shaskevich will share research on graphic designer and computer artist Michael Tidmus and Cait McKinney will discuss net art projects commissioned by Creative Time in the 1990s for Visual AIDS’s Day Without Art. Michael Connor, Executive Director of Rhizome, will moderate.

Bringing together artists, scholars, and community members, the symposium creates space for dialogue and critical engagement with the histories of art and AIDS.

Registration is free and the event will be livestreamed.

Register here

Program

2:00pm Introduction

Alethea Rockwell, Keith Haring Director of Education and Engagement, and Kyle Croft, Executive Director of Visual AIDS
Updates from the Archivist: Jacs Rodriguez

2:45pm Researching Artists Lost to AIDS

Presentations by Visual AIDS Research Fellows:

Alex Lenczycki on Gin Louie (1947–1994)
Chava Maeve Krivchenia on Garland Eliason-French (1942-1996)
Diogene Artiles on Miguel Ferrando (1957–1996)

3:45pm Break

Visit New Museum exhibitions Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony, The Bowery: Devil’s Mile, and Diego Marcon: Arrivederci, Piggies!

4:30pm AIDS Software and Networks

Helena Shaskevich, Cait McKinney, and Michael Connor

5:30pm Event Closes

Accessibility:

Live CART captioning will be provided for this program.

American Sign Language interpretation for public programs is available free of charge upon request with three weeks’ advance notice.

For all accessibility questions or requests, please contact the New Museum directly here.
 

Visual AIDS Research Fellows

Alex Lenczycki (they/them) is an art historian whose research engages with the work of various queer artists and community groups from the 1970s through the 1990s. Previous research projects include examining the use of artistic appropriation in AIDS education posters and print media of the 1980s and interpreting installation and assemblage works through lenses of autobiography, queer death studies, and self-memorialization.

Chava Maeve Krivchenia is a writer and curator, and currently serves as the Assistant Curator at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Her work explores the intersections of contemporary art, material culture, and ecology. At John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Krivchenia has curated solo exhibitions for artists Emily Endo, Ashwini Bhat, Marie Lorenz, and Willie Cole, among others. Krivchenia holds an MA in Contemporary and Modern Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Helena Shaskevich, PhD., is an assistant professor of modern and contemporary art history, with a specialization in experimental media art from the 1960s to the present. Her scholarly writing has been published in numerous journals, including Feminist Media Histories, Camera Obscura, Art Journal, and Afterimage, among others. Her short-form writing can be found in the Brooklyn Rail, Burlington Contemporary, and Burnaway. She has also curated numerous public programs on new media art.

Cait McKinney is the author of I Know You Are, but What Am I? On Pee-wee Herman (Minnesota, 2024) and Information Activism: A Queer History of Lesbian Media Technologies (Duke, 2020), recipient of the Gertrude Robinson Best Book Prize from the Canadian Communication Association and Lambda Literary Award Finalist in LGBTQ studies. They are associate professor of communication at Simon Fraser University.

Diogene (Dio) Artiles is an interdisciplinary writer and scholar from Brooklyn, New York. They studied Comparative Literature and Portuguese Studies at Columbia University, where their research compared the visual cultures of the queer waterfront in New York City and Rio de Janeiro. Diogene is interested in queer visual histories, literature, and legal studies. Diogene is now pursuing their JD at Vanderbilt Law School.