Unleashing The Archive:
A World AIDS Day Event
DECEMBER 1, 2011
The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania observes the 22nd Day With(out) Art, taking place on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2011, with Unleashing the Archive. A two-part project, Unleashing the Archive is a momentary retrospective that reactivates archival documents as a way of addressing the history of AIDS cultural activism and direct action in the context of the present crisis.
Because of the growing rate of HIV infection each year in Philadelphia alone, (approximately 1,400 people are infected, a rate more than 50% higher than residents of New York City and five times the national average), ICA believes it is necessary to take this nation-wide event as an opportunity to increase awareness among at-risk communities and the general public in Philadelphia. To further this effort, we are partnering with Philadelphia FIGHT's AIDS Library.
For the first part of the project ICA will participate in a national, simultaneous, free screening of Untitled, a film by Jim Hodges, Encke King, and Carlos Marques da Cruz, on December 1st as part of Day With(out) Art, a national day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis launched by Visual AIDS in 1989. Screenings of Untitled will be held from 11am-5pm, every hour on the hour in the ICA Tuttleman Auditorium. Screenings are free and open to the public.
Untitled is a 60-minute non-linear montage of archival and pop footage recalling the passionate activism sparked by the early years of the AIDS crisis. In 2010, artist Jim Hodges was invited to give a lecture on the billboard project of Félix González-Torres at San Antonioʼs Artpace. He teamed up with fellow filmmakers Carlos Marques da Cruz and Encke King to create Untitled. Neither a portrait or a documentary about González-Torres, the film is an attempt to create an understanding of the influences and contexts within which González-Torres was working. In Hodges's words, "In this way, the framing of the artist can become a way to project any number of people, endlessly." Untitled can therefore be considered to be as much about González-Torres and the AIDS crisis as it can be seen as grappling with the continuum of global dehumanization.
Inspired by the filmmakers' use of archival footage to address current issues the second part of the project focuses on iconic images from the early days of the AIDS crisis. These graphics are drawn from the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), a national and international non-partisan advocacy group formed in 1987; Gran Fury, an artists' collective that served as ACT UP/NY's unofficial "propaganda ministry;" and Philadelphia-based organizations like GALAEI (Gay and Lesbian Latino AIDS Education Initiative) and ASIAC (AIDS Services in Asian Communities).
In 1996 ACT UP/NY and Gran Fury donated their collection to the New York Public Library with explicit specifications that it remain in the public domain. Unleashing the Archive enacts this intended use by disseminating selected works throughout Philadelphia's media, reinserting them into the city fabric. Jointly organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia FIGHT's AIDS Library, and with the support of signatories from the Philadelphia community, we are asking print and online media in the Greater Philadelphia area to reproduce one of these iconic images on December 1st. This cultural activism campaign will significantly raise public awareness of HIV and AIDS in this, the pandemic's 30th year.
Unleashing the Archive is organized by ICA 2011-2012 Whitney-Lauder Curatorial Fellow Jennifer Burris.
ICA wishes to thank: the New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division; Philadelphia FIGHT/AIDS Library; Thomas Devaney; Thadeus Dowad; Ellie Levitt; Thomas Lannon; Peter Lien; GALAEI Project; San Francisco AIDS Foundation; ASIAC; and Mark Seaman.