The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Related Content

• Romeo and Juliet
• Falling Man
• Art Gossip: Mrs. Cheney is Awful
• Your Dreams Were Your Ticket Out
• Blame It on Holland Cotter

On December 1, 1989, about six hundred galleries, museums and arts organizations across America, concentrated primarily in New York but including some here in the Twin Cities, observed the first "A Day Without Art." Coordinated by a New York-based group called Visual AIDS, the idea was for these institutions to mark the impact that the AIDS epidemic had made in the art world by shutting down exhibitions for a day, temporarily removing artwork from gallery walls, and sponsoring workshops, performances, lectures, rallies and memorial services (you can read The New York Times' contemporary coverage of the day's events here). Looking back on the coverage of that day two decades later, one can learn a lot about how the perception of AIDS has changed over time, and how much, in certain respects, it remains the same.

In his visual arts blog Leaping Into the Void last week, artist Michael Buitron pointed out that today, December 1, marks the 19^th anniversary of that first A Day Without Art, and encouraged visual art bloggers to take the day to post remembrances of artists and arts workers they had known over the years who had died of AIDS-related causes. He asks in particular that writers focus on those who had died in the pre-Internet era and whose names and contributions are absent from cyberspace.

One can think of it this way: AIDS predates mass use of the Internet by at least ten or fifteen years. Consequently, the work of artists whose careers were cut short by the epidemic is not documented online as thoroughly as the work of their post-Internet peers, if it's documented at all. That doesn't even consider the potential that was present in these artists, many of whom certainly would have gone on to have long and rewarding careers in their fields. Most AIDS victims through the pre-Internet era died quite young, and many would today just be entering middle age and what is generally termed "mid-career," enjoying all of the successes and struggles that accompany that distinction. I don't mean to strike a mawkish tone here, but the fact is the AIDS epidemic disproportionately affected the arts world. There is a significant part of a whole generation's worth of voices that are needlessly missing from the far-reaching, all-remembering, back-and-forth conversation that is the Internet, that force that shapes, defines and arbitrates so much of our experience.

Buitron's post made me wonder how exactly A Day Without Art was observed here in Minneapolis in 1989. Not having any firsthand knowledge myself, I took a trip to the Central Library to consult the Minneapolis art world's periodical of record, Artpaper. If you've never spent any time with Artpaper, I encourage you to take a few hours some weekend to do so (they keep them, unbound, up in the magazine stacks on the 3^rd floor). Published just beyond the reach of the Internet's institutional memory between 1982 and 1993, it's a fascinating and indispensable look at how the art scene in this town operated through that era. I don't believe any of it is available online, but the next time I win a few thousand dollars worth of grant money, I'll gladly initiate a digitization project.

Sure enough, in the December 1989 issue, there was an excellent, comprehensive piece written by journalist David Anger, detailing the various observations and reactions around town from the art and activism communities on A Day Without Art (infinitely better than the contemporary coverage I found in City Pages, the Reader or the Star-Tribune, I should add - what media outlet today, print or online, serves the art community as well as Artpaper did in its day? That's a good question for another time). Surprisingly (or not!), the very idea of A Day Without Art was met with mixed opinions, right from the outset. Anger quotes the late AIDS activist and journal editor Keith Gann as noting, "Art is what sustains us. Why close it down?" Others voiced a similarly mixed or muted response. Catherine Jordan of Arts Over AIDS worried that A Day Without Art "trivialized the issue because we're losing artists and their art for a lifetime, not a day." Others were concerned that the disproportionate loss of life in the New York compared to Minnesota made observing such a day here in this way seem frivolous. No doubt that the Minnesota arts community was unified in their passion and commitment to fighting AIDS, but I think there is a tendency to sometimes retroactively slap a bright red ribbon on AIDS activism and assume that everyone has always been on the same page, about everything, all the time. It's worth remembering that intelligent, committed people can have serious disagreements about how best to address serious issues. This article expresses that sentiment well. Minneapolis is not New York, after all, and even within the microcosm of our own arts community, there are always going to be conflicts and disagreements.

A Day Without Art poster from 1991. All images courtesy of Visual AIDS.

That said, on December 1, 1989, there were a number of major observations around town. The Walker made mention of the day in their promotional literature, but did not directly participate (they had already scheduled a similar day of AIDS-related programming for the following January). Neither the MIA nor the Weisman, so far as I am able to tell, held any sort of observance. The Minnesota Museum of American Art, however, closed down various galleries in their space throughout the course of the day in commemoration. The now-defunct First Bank, who boasted a first-rate collection of local art and whose influence in the art community in the 1980s now seems hard to fathom, marked the event all week long, with programming related to AIDS education on display in their exhibition spaces. In fact, a few pages from Anger's piece, there is a full-page advertisement from First Bank commemorating the day and listing contact information for ACT UP Minnesota, the AIDS Emergency Fund and other activist groups and agencies. A few arts nonprofits spent the day volunteering for AIDS-related organizations, and Arts Over AIDS held a vigil on Nicollet Island on the morning of December 1, commemorating the lives of the 324 Minnesotans who had died of AIDS to that point.

Coming across a number like 324 is very strange. It's a significant number, of course, but it's sad to consider that the epidemic had not yet reached its early- to mid-1990s peak, and it seems like a very small number indeed when compared to the figures from the years that followed. By 2007, at least 2,213 more Minnesotans would die of AIDS. At least 2,633 are presently living with the disease, compared to 617 in 1989. Of course, it's also worth considering that between 1982 and 1994, cumulative AIDS fatality rates were 84%. By 2007, the cumulative total since 1982 had dropped significantly to 52%. That's still 52% too many, of course, but it is a marked improvement. Still, reading this account from 1989, particularly when Anger writes bitterly that public interest in the subject seems to be dropping off, and he worries that people are gradually becoming "bored with AIDS," one is faced with the troubling knowledge that the crisis will continue to get much, much worse before it starts to get better.

Anger writes, in reference to popular coverage of AIDS in the 1980s, that television is "the principal cultural medium of contemporary life." This is no longer the case - today it's almost certainly the Internet that fulfills this function. The difference is that unlike television, the Internet is essentially an interactive medium, one that invites contributions from those who experiences it. So take a look at what other art blogs such are Leaping Into the Void are posting today. Then consider leaving your own remembrances of artists and art workers here in the Twin Cities that have died in the comments section below. Highlighting these artists and their work was one of the principal aims of the Day Without Art nineteen years ago, so take advantage of the opportunity to do that today. I will give David Anger, writing from the pages of Artpaper, the last word: "If art cannot validate our need to mourn as well as our need for action, then, I ask, what good is it?"