We were thrilled to honor Lola Flash, Philip Yenawine, and Brian Butterick (1956-2019) at the 2024 Visual AIDS Vanguard Awards on June 5, 2024 at City Winery NYC. Since 2006, VAVA has honored members of our community whose impact has benefited artists living with HIV and those lost to AIDS. VAVA sustains the vital 36-year legacy of Visual AIDS, and we are honored to highlight the tremendous careers of these crucial community members with this moment of celebration.

Sponsors/Supporters

GOLD SPONSOR

Agnes Gund

Jim Hodges, Manuela Donoso, Carlos Marques da Cruz

Marta Heflin Foundation

SILVER SPONSOR

Dr. Daniel S. Berger

Laura Donnelley

Carlos Gutierrez-Solana

Dr. Bruce M Halpryn

Simone Leigh

P·P·O·W

PATRON

Mary L Beebe and Charles Reilly

Gail Goldberg and Greg Vignapiano

Elaine Goldman

Aldo Hernandez

HOWL! Arts

Matthew Marks

Michael Marks

Pat Owens and Gary Martin

Regina and Benjamin Shepherd

Sikkema Jenkins & Co

Lowery Sims

Anita Vitale

Susan Weiler

Lauren Wittels

FRIEND

Andrea Blum

Michael Boodro and Robert Pini

Cee Brown and John Bjornen

David Deitcher

Linda Earle and Joe Sullivan

Gordon Finkelstein and Jody Quon

Gai Gherardi

Sam Gordon

Alexander Grey

Cat Gund

Jane Hammond

John Hanning

Howard and Michele Harris

James Jaxxa

Tom Kalin and Craig Paull

Karma

Luhring Augustine

Candice Madey

Gracie Mansion

Esther McGowan

Lucas Michael

Pen and Brush

Mark Quigley

RYAN LEE

Fernando Santangelo

Nelson Santos

Eric Shiner

Joy Silverman and Pazia Bermudez-Silverman

Elizabeth Streb and Laura Flanders

Ward Rafferty

Dana and Ken Triwush

Muna Tseng and Chris Gray

Bill Van Parys and Doug Harris

VAVA PLANNING COMMITTEE:

Isaac Alpert, Lucas Michael, Wendy Olsoff, Eric Sosa, Marguerite Van Cook

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

Jean Foos, Teresa Ferrando Kleint, Stephen Gemberling, Luther Davis and Powerhouse Arts, Gordon Robichaux, Tabboo!, Ana Benaroya, Jo Lum

LOLA FLASH

A New Jersey native who is a longtime figure in New York’s downtown scene, Lola Flash is an activist documenting themes around race, age, and gender. Flash was an active member of ACT UP during the time of the AIDS epidemic in New York City, and was notably featured in the 1989 “Kissing Doesn’t Kill” poster. Their art and activism are profoundly connected, fueling a life-long commitment to visibility and preserving the legacy of LGBTQIA+ and communities of color worldwide.

Flash has been working as a practicing artist and teacher in the US and UK with numerous international exhibitions and commissions over the past several decades, and has work included in important public collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, MoMA, the Whitney and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Flash’s work welcomes audiences who are willing to not only look but see.

lolaflash.com

PHILIP YENAWINE

Philip Yenawine has been engaged in museum education for forty years, ten of those as director of education at MOMA. He writes about art often focused on connecting people to it, especially children. He co-created Art Matters Foundation with Laura Donnelley, Visual Thinking Strategies with Abigail Housen, and was an early member of Visual AIDS. He coordinated the first Day Without Art and was meeting chair for the first several years of its operation. He was instrumental in underwriting salaries for VisualAIDS’ first two employees, Patrick O’Connell and Alexander Gray. We continues to write about art and to support the implementation of Visual Thinking Strategies. He lives in Baltimore with his husband Leo Buser.

philipyenawine.com

BRIAN BUTTERICK (1956-2019)

New York born Brian Butterick (AKA Hattie Hathaway) was a performer, actor, writer, producer and personality working in Downtown art, theatre, film and nightlife for over forty years.

He sat on the Executive Board of the HOWL! Festival, the annual celebration of art, music, dance, theatre and spoken word centered around New York’s East Village/Lower East Side. He appeared in Steven Schainberg’s Fur, starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jr. and made his Broadway debut in The Roundabout Theatre’s production The Threepenny Opera, newly translated by Wallace Shawn, directed by Scott Elliot and starring Alan Cumming and Cyndi Lauper.

In the 1990’s, Butterick co-produced the famed New York Meat Market Tuesday-night-only boite, Jackie 60, and [co-produced] Night Of a Thousand Stevies. From 1991-95, he produced, directed and acted in the underground theatrical ensemble, Blacklips Performance Cult.

In the 1980’s, Butterick was creative director of the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge, a venue that melded the performing arts with music and drag. From 1985-89, he co-founded and produced Wigstock, Tompkins Square Park’s outdoor festival of drag performance, which was later immortalized in the Goldwyn film of the same name. During this time, Butterick also appeared in numerous independent films, most notably Charles Atlas’ Son Of Sam & Delilah, for PBS, as well as composing and performing with the post-punk band, 3 Teens Kill 4.

brianbutterick.org

John Kelly + Doug Bressler of Rimbaud Hattie

We're thrilled to have genre-defying performance artist John Kelly and 3 Teens Kill 4 member Doug Bressler, both members of the band Rimbaud Hattie, bring their music and their love of Brian to the VAVA stage.

HATTIE x BLACKLIPS: A TRIBUTE PERFORMANCE

Continuing an ongoing, intergenerational exploration of the Black Lips Performance Cult initiated at the 2023 LaMaMa Squirts Queer Performance Festival, Hattie x Blacklips: A Tribute Performance will feature original Blacklips member Michael Cavadias alongside a younger generation of queer performers—Paris Alexander, Buffy, Polyester, Vague Static, and Spawn—to honor the legacy Brian Butterick and the indelible mark of this iconic performance group.