David Hirsh Tapes

The David Hirsh Tapes comprise 569 recordings of interviews with 301 LGBTQ visual artists in New York City between 1990 and 1995, at the height of the AIDS crisis. Conducted by journalist David Hirsh for his weekly columns in publications such as the New York Native, Au Courant, and the Bay Area Reporter, these interviews represent one of the most extensive oral records of queer artistic life in this period. While excerpts appeared in print, the complete interviews—totaling more than 40,000 minutes of audio and video—have never before been widely accessible.

The collection captures the voices of artists working amid the intersecting crises of HIV/AIDS, censorship, racism, homophobia, and misogyny. The tapes preserve insights from well-known figures such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Wojnarowicz, and Martin Wong, alongside rare or sole recordings of artists whose legacies remain precarious, such as Darrel Ellis, Arnold Fern, and Juan González. Together, these materials illuminate the social, political, and artistic currents of the 1990s, offering crucial context for art historians, cultural critics, and scholars of HIV/AIDS, gender, and queer studies.