This Is A Reminder

World AIDS Day brings attention to the epidemic’s continuing crisis.

by David McCarthy

onday, December 1st, is World AIDS Day and Day Without Art. Throughout the world, museums, galleries, and theatres will mark the date by distributing literature about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, by removing or selectively wrapping individual works of art, and by staging special performances of commemoration. Such events have become a staple of World AIDS Day activities over the past decade.
Whether we like it or not, the epidemic is still very much with us. It affects our families (however we define them), our places of work and worship, and our sense of what it means to be human in the last years of this century. To say that too

Tim Andrews, Life Remains a Blessing Although You Cannot Bless, charcoal and pastel on paper, 32” x 47”

many people have needlessly died already seems a horrible commonplace, even if it is nonetheless true. To remind ourselves that we need to celebrate each day of life in the face of so much loss is one of the bitterly ironic lessons taught by this insidious virus. To remember that those individuals who are HIV-positive are just as full of life as those not infected is to resist marginalizing and stigmatizing them.
From the first public reports of individual cases, HIV/AIDS was understood through visual representations that played on societal fears of otherness. An early, and thoroughly racist, joke had it that the most difficult part of telling your parents you were HIV-positive was in convincing them that you were Haitian. For over a decade, gay men were stigmatized, even as their rates of infection declined. Drug users who shared needles were also perceived as a menace to society. Most recently, the toxic mixture of color, drug use, and hyper-(hetero)sexual activity has captured media attention, with the specter of a black male sweeping across the state of New York like the grim reaper. The problem with such stereotyping is that it reduces the enormous complexities of the epidemic to a series of simplifying images that replicate deep-seated fears within our society. Fear may be one motivation for caution, but it is ultimately as ineffective as it is wrong. It also suggests that others are to blame, when in fact each of us has a responsibility for ourselves, and to those we love.
We also tend to forget that real people live with the virus, and that they have important things to tell us about themselves and the world we all share. Currently the Clough-Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College is exhibiting “Glancing Back in the Mirror,” 15 self-portraits by Tim Andrews, a local artist well known for his activism in relation to HIV/AIDS. At once disarmingly frank, seductively sensual, and historically informed, the portraits reveal many things about Andrews.
Besides being HIV-positive, Andrews is also a hemophiliac who must monitor his physical health daily. Some of the portraits record his routine health maintenance, from periodic knee replacements to the ingestion of pills and occasional blood tests. Other portraits argue that his physical desires – whether embodied or realized through his art – are part of life, indeed, one of the joys of being alive.
An extraordinary recent work finds Andrews recumbent in his lush Midtown garden, presented as a latter-day faun, yet poignantly contrasted with a dead dove. Several early portraits, produced while he was a graduate student at the Memphis College of Art, contain skulls and other vanitas symbols. Traditionally used by Renaissance artists as a reminder of earthly transience, these symbols take on topical resonance in Andrews’ portraits. They help frame his studio practice through allusions to previous art, such as a noted self-portrait nude by Albrecht Dürer from about 1503, while also talking about his concerns in the moment. Collectively, the self-portraits provide a complex view of HIV by focusing on the life of one individual.
To mark World AIDS Day, the Clough-Hanson Gallery and Rhodes Counseling and Student Development Center will sponsor a panel discussion on “Art and AIDS” at 7 p.m. in the Orgill Room in Clough Hall. In organizing the panel, we hope to focus attention locally on the epidemic.
I will criticize media stereotypes used to marginalize, stigmatize, or misrepresent the profound complexities of the epidemic, while Ellen Armour, professor of religious studies, will challenge the idea the identities are either stable or straightforward expressions of an inner self. Tim Andrews will talk about his life as an HIV-positive male, and discuss how he uses his art to communicate with others about his life. Together, we hope to provide a forum that complicates simplified representations of the epidemic. n

David McCarthy teaches the history of art at Rhodes College.