The Artist+ Registry and Archive Project

The Visual AIDS Archive Project’s mission is to continue to collect, describe, preserve, and provide access to the personal papers, audiovisual materials, publications, and ephemera created, dealing with, or collected by HIV+ artists.

The Archive Project, including the Artist+ Registry, collects personal papers and records pertaining to the lives and work of artists living with HIV and AIDS, as well as those who have passed. The Archive Project was started in 1994 by Frank Moore and David Hirsh as a response to losing not only friends in the AIDS crisis but also the loss of art and personal papers that often followed. The Archive Project exists as artist collections that are mainly made up of personal papers such as slide photographs taken by Visual AIDS volunteers during the 1990s, artist statements, CVs, press clippings, exhibition announcements, correspondence with Visual AIDS, and other objects related to the lives and work of these artists. The files also contain a small number of artists' books, artworks on paper, personal photographs, and personal writing. In the spirit of community archives, our donations have come from artist members, estates, friends, and family members.

In November 2012, Visual AIDS launched the Artist+ Registry as the digital outgrowth and access point for digitized photographs from the physical collection. Most profiles, but not all, contain biographical information in the form of short biographies, artist statements, and CVs. The Artist+ Registry is a continuously growing, online repository containing artwork by over 970 artists with HIV and AIDS. The Registry is open to the public, allowing anyone who self-identifies as an artist living with HIV to create a profile, upload images of their artwork, add biographical information, and add new images of work at their convenience.

In a new push funded through the Mellon Foundation, we are working toward further digitize the remainder of our collections to provide a better representation of our collections and in turn, fuller context to the art and lives of these artists. Along with digitizing additional materials, we are working towards having a more substantial catalog so users can more accurately see and access what we have in our holdings. Through this new activation, researchers will be able to piece together a more complete narrative of the lives, struggles, and successes of the artists in our collections.

We are continually improving the quality of the Artist+ Registry & Archive Project. Please send feedback, error reports, and suggestions to artists@visualaids.org.

The Archive Committee started in January 2020 as a community-based archive initiative to collectively develop and re-envision the strategic planning, BIPOC racial justice frameworks, and collections development policies and management of the Archive Project & Registry initially organized by Tracy Fenix, former Artist Engagement & Archive Manager with support from Kyle Croft, Programs Director. The Archive Committee is now led and organized by Kailee Faber, Archivist at Visual AIDS.

Shane Aslan Selzer, Social Action Archive Committee & Researcher with CG/ FGT/ RL Archives

Katherine Cheairs, Director of Education at Howl! & What Would an HIV Doula Do (WWHIVD) collective member

Ursula Davila-Villa, Visual AIDS Board Member & Archive Estate Manager

Caitlin McCarthy, Archivist at The LGBT Center

Cherry Montejo, Archivist at Hunter College & Chris Calhoun Agency

Anthony Rosado, Curator, Artist, Artist Member

J Soto, Director of Engagement and Inclusion, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art

Sur Rodney (Sur), Archivist & long-standing Visual AIDS community member