Absence/Presence: 30 Years of Day Without Art

Commemorating Visual AIDS’ three-decades-strong initiative to mobilize art institutions toward political acts of resistance

This landmark volume resurfaces the history of Day Without Art, a day of action and mourning in response to the ongoing AIDS crisis, organized by Visual AIDS and observed by thousands of museums, universities and galleries since 1989. Conceived amid the culture wars of the late 1980s, Day Without Art marked a decisive shift in how art institutions understood their social and political responsibilities, calling on them to confront the AIDS crisis publicly. What began as a call for institutions to close or remove artworks—using absence to give presence to the losses of the AIDS crisis—quickly evolved into a networked platform for socially engaged art, ranging from posters and stickers to net art, public projections and national television broadcasts.

Spanning more than 300 pages, this publication brings together a chorus of critical essays, firsthand reflections and previously unpublished archival material documenting three decades of Visual AIDS’ artistic commissions and institutional collaborations. Together, these contributions offer long-overdue recognition of the labor and political negotiation behind the program, demonstrating the significance of Day Without Art within histories of institutional critique and social practice.

Now available for preorder with free shipping in the US — use code AIDSISNOTOVER.

Ships November 2026

304 pp, hardcover, 12 x 9.5 inches
Edited with text by Kyle Croft, Risa Puleo. Preface by Robert Atkins. Foreword by Esther McGowan. Text by Douglas Crimp, Ariel Goldberg, Roderick A. Ferguson, Claire Grace, Cait McKinney, Theodore (ted) Kerr, Elizabeth Koke. Conversations with Amy Sadao, Nelson Santos, Alex Fialho, Alexandra Juhasz, Vivian Crockett, Jawanza James Williams.
Designed by Practise
Published by Visual AIDS and [NAME] Publications, 2026
ISBN: 9798988981749