Journal

Visual AIDS publishes essays, interviews, and other writing related to HIV-positive artists and broader cultural histories of HIV and AIDS.

PETER HUJARS DAY STILL 1
December 3, 2025
Kyle Croft

Ira Sachs and Morgan Bassichis on reenacting artists lost to AIDS

Impersonating the dead can be risky work. This year, Ira Sachs' 'Peter Hujar's Day' and Morgan Bassichis' 'Can I Be Frank?' each used reenactment to animate two artists lost to AIDS. Sachs and Bassichis join Kyle Croft, Executive Director at Visual AIDS, for a conversation about the stakes and motivations behind their work.
October 9, 2025
Isabella Marie Garcia

"Voy a llevar este barquito a la orilla del mar": The Lives and Legacies of Carlos Alfonzo and Fernando Garcia

Research Fellow Isabella Marie Garcia brings together the stories of two Cuban artists, Carlos Alfonzo and Fernando Garcia, focusing on how their work reflected the experience of being Cuban immigrants and grappling with a variety of political and social forces working against them.
September 9, 2025
Timothy E. Bradley

All This Clamoring for Life: The Performance Art of Frank Green

Research Fellow Timothy E. Bradley explores the work of Frank Green (1957–2013), a performance and installation artist who worked in New York and Ohio. Bradley focuses on The Scarlet Letters, a searing and iconoclastic performance that questioned medical knowledge about AIDS in the mid-1990s.
April 2, 2025
Michele Bertolino

In the Eternity of His Life: On Vittorio Scarpati, Joy, and Love

In 1989, Vittorio Scarpati (1953–1989) produced a suite of intricate and expressive drawings while hospitalized at Cabrini Medical Center. The drawings were exhibited the same year in exhibitions organized by his wife, Cookie Mueller, at 56 Bleecker Gallery and his friend, Nan Goldin, at Artists Space. Michele Bertolino reflects on the euphoric undercurrent that shines through Scarpati's work.
March 28, 2025
Jorge Bordello

Dreaming Snakes: Acts of illusion and protest in the work of Sergio Hernández Francés

Research Fellow Jorge Bordello presents the work of Mexican artist Sergio Hernández Francés (1964-1995), who worked across multimedia theater, performance and video. Connecting his early work as an actor and his collaborations with the rock band Santa Sabina to his later experimental video work, Bordello illuminates Sergio’s wide-ranging influence on Mexican cultural history—from the ‘rock en tu idioma’ movement, Mexican video art, and literature.

Announcements

Monday December 15, 2025

Introducing our 2025 Research Fellows