The Third Annual Visual AIDS Research Symposium

This 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.

The third iteration of this annual event opened with presentations by Visual AIDS Research Fellows about the lives and work of three underrecognized artists who died of AIDS-related causes: Frank Green (1957–2013), Miss Kitty Litter (1962–1995), and Sergio Hernandez Frances* (1964–1995).

The second part of the symposium was organized by Annette-Carina van der Zaag and Rory Crath in collaboration with Visual AIDS as part of the Terra Foundation for American Art supported project Aesthetics of Ruination. The project began as a collective exploration of the work of two artists lost to AIDS—Robert Farber (1948–1995), whose Western Blot series invokes the imagery of the bubonic plague, and Ronald Lockett (1965–1998), whose assemblages incorporate salvaged industrial materials. Scholars and artists who participated in the project—including Corentin JPM Leven, Eva Hayward, Marquis Bey, Julie Tolentino, Joseph M. Pierce, and C. (Constantine) Jones—invited the audience to engage the HIV/AIDS archive as an archive of feeling and sensing. Through presentations and performances—with each one refracting differently its own relation to the sculptural works and practices of these artists—the Aesthetics of Ruination collective explored how "feeling backwards” and waywards can envision alternative, more livable futures.

The research symposium was planned in conjunction with the exhibitions In the Shadow of the American Dream and 500 Years currently on view in MoMA’s second-floor collection galleries.

Program

1:30pm Coffee and Check-In

2:00pm Welcome and Introduction

2:15pm Researching Artists Lost to AIDS

Presentations by Visual AIDS Research Fellows:

Timothy Bradley on Frank Green (1957–2013)
Avik Sarkar on Miss Kitty Litter (1962–1995)
Jorge Bordello on Sergio Hernández Francés (1964–1995)*

3:15pm Break

3:45pm Aesthetics of Ruination

Introduction by Annette-Carina van der Zaag and Rory Crath

Presentations by Corentin JPM Leven, Eva Hayward, Rory Crath, Marquis Bey, and Julie Tolentino

5:00pm Break

5:30pm Aesthetics of Ruination

Presentations by Joseph M. Pierce, Julie Tolentino, C. (Constantine Jones) and Annette-Carina van der Zaag

Audience Response

6:30pm Closing Remarks

The Aesthetics of Ruination research studio and related programming is made possible by the Terra Foundation for American Art. 

Visual AIDS Research Fellows

Jorge Bordello is a visual artist from Tlaxcala, Mexico.

Timothy E. Bradley is a New York City-based writer and 2025 Lambda Literary Fellow whose work has been published in Foglifter Journal, Visual AIDS, and exhibition catalogues for Galleria Poggiali, Monique Meloche Gallery, and ICA San Francisco.

Avik Sarkar is a student at Harvard Law School, where she focuses on feminist legal theory and queer/trans legal history in the twentieth-century United States.

Aesthetics of Ruination Collective

Marquis Bey is Professor of Black Studies and Gender & Sexuality Studies at Northwestern University.

Annette-Carina van der Zaag is a scholar/artist at the Sandberg Institute, Rietveld Academy Amsterdam, exploring themes and practices of sexuality, critical negativity and fugitivity through writing and wearable sculpture. 

Rory Crath is an interdisciplinary researcher and Associate Professor at Smith College School for Social Work exploring such themes as risk governance, the material-aesthetics of biopolitics and its discontents, and queer embodiments.

Dr. Eva Hayward is a teacher and scholar at the University of New Mexico

C. (Constantine Jones) is a Greek-American thingmaker from Tennessee whose practice is collaborative in nature and rooted at the intersections of HIV/AIDS futurity, communal mythmaking as cultural archive, and poetry as catalyst for social instigation.

Corentin JPM LEVEN is a Franco-Norwegian performer and stage designer. His artistic practice revolves around HIV and the study of the memorial in contrast to the monument in the various temporalities of the AIDS crisis and its ongoing challenges.

Joseph M. Pierce (Cherokee Nation citizen) is Associate Professor and Director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Stony Brook University, and a former Scholar-in-Residence at MoMA. 

Julie Tolentino  (she/they) creates objects, sound, and durational performances, is faculty and Program Co-Director at CalArts, TDR Provocations editor, a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow and in 2026, a returning MacDowell Fellow and Queer|Art Mentor.