Alternate Endings, Radical Beginnings

  • December 2, 2017 / 14:00
  • December 10, 2017 / 14:00

Stones & Water Weight, Mykki Blanco, 2017, 6' 40''
DiAna's Hair Ego Remix, Cheryl Dunye & Ellen Spiro, 2017, 8' 38''
Atlantic is a Sea of Bones, Reina Gossett, 2017, 7' 32''
About Face: The Evolution of a Black Producer, Thomas Allen Harris, 2017, 8' 12''
Goodnight, Kia, Kia Labeija, 2017, 5' 20''
The Labyrinth 1.0, Tiona McClodden, 2017, 5' 47''
100 Boyfriends Mixtape (the demo), Brontez Purnell, 2017, 8' 09''
 

Alternate Endings, Radical Beginnings is the 28th annual iteration of Visual AIDS’ longstanding Day With(out) Art project. Curated by Erin Christovale and Vivian Crockett for Visual AIDS, the video program prioritizes Black narratives within the ongoing AIDS epidemic, commissioning seven new and innovative short videos from artists Mykki Blanco, Cheryl Dunye & Ellen Spiro, Reina Gossett, Thomas Allen Harris, Kia LaBeija, Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Brontez Purnell. In spite of the impact of HIV/AIDS within Black communities, these stories and experiences are constantly excluded from larger artistic and historical narratives. In 2016 African Americans represented 44% of all new HIV diagnoses in the United States. Given this context, it is increasingly urgent to feature a myriad of stories that consider and represent the lives of those housed within this statistic. Alternate Endings, Radical Beginnings seeks to highlight the voices of those that are marginalized within broader Black communities nationwide, including queer and trans people. The commissioned projects include intimate meditations of young HIV positive protagonists; a consideration of community-based HIV/AIDS activism in the South; explorations of the legacies and contemporary resonances within AIDS archives; a poetic journey through New York exploring historical traces of queer and trans life, and more. Together, the videos provide a platform centering voices deeply impacted by the ongoing epidemic.

 
 

Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures

Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures

How to Survive a Plague

How to Survive a Plague

120 BPM

120 BPM

Home Video: Media Art in Response to HIV/AIDS

Home Video: Media Art in Response to HIV/AIDS

Alternate Endings, Radical Beginnings

Alternate Endings, Radical Beginnings

Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel

Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel

In 1998 Ben Jakober and Yannick Vu collaborated on an obvious remake of Marcel Duchamp’s Roue de Bicyclette, his first “readymade” object. Duchamp combined a bicycle wheel, a fork and a stool to create a machine which served no purpose, subverting accepted norms of art. 

Good News from the Skies

Good News from the Skies

Inspired by the exhibition And Now the Good News, which focusing on the relationship between mass media and art, we prepared horoscope readings based on the chapters of the exhibition. Using the popular astrological language inspired by the effects of the movements of celestial bodies on people, these readings with references to the works in the exhibition make fictional future predictions inspired by the horoscope columns that we read in the newspapers with the desire to receive good news about our day. 

Turquerie

Turquerie

Having penetrated the Balkans in the fourteenth century, conquered Constantinople in the fifteenth, and reached the gates of Vienna in the sixteenth, the Ottoman Empire long struck fear into European hearts.