GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

SECHON B

MAY 20, 1994

Evenings Out

Fleshing o changing t

by Charlton Harper

Where can we turn when the emptiness of words overwhelms the urgent need to keep alive an open dialog about AIDS? When words sputter along on an endless loop and no one is really listening, where is the inspiration to say something more, find new ways of getting out the same old message? Where do we find the strength to keep on fighting?

"Creating in Crisis: Making Art in the Age of AIDS," on view at Cleveland's Spaces gallery May 27 through July 1, is more than a pit-stop for emotional rejuvenation. Spaces has gone further than the typical artists-respond-to-AIDS show by adding the active participation of artists who have felt the crush of AIDS directly. This isn't just about art and AIDS, but about the variety of expression that's born of living with AIDS and HIV. Several participants are themselves HIV positive, working under and through the shadow of the virus. Others have struggled to sort out the devastation AIDS has brought to their personal lives.

In fact, variety is an underlying theme to "Creating in Crisis." Like the printed word, the potency of the visual image is all too often diluted through repetition. But repetition is not a color in the Spaces palette. Curators Jeffrey D. Grove, Micheal Milligan and Dan Postotnik have heroically fleshed out a three-dimensional, breathing picture of the many issues that surround AIDS. The work of twenty artists is deftly balanced in a satisfying blend of visual images, the printed word and live performance. There truly is something here for all tastes; paintings, watercolors, performance work, three-

JOURNEY

ミツ

Elliot Linwood's Lock, a 4 foot pyramid of human hair

dimensional forms, larger installations and photography, all ranging through traditionally representational to wildly abstract.

More importantly, there's an acknowledgment of the varying levels of AIDS awareness that each viewer who wanders through the gallery will possess. There are works here that take the form of aesthetic safe-sex messages; some, like Charles Cave's condom sculptures, made from the very materials of safer sex. Cave and the Latex Research Institute have created latex figurines of familiar cartoon characters, playfully

send-

DESIRE

safe sex art, HIV/AIDS Tarot by Kim Abeles

ing out a safe sex message to a targeted age group of condom users and those who may too easily forget to use. After decades of furtive under-the-counter condom purchases, imagine picking up a six-pack of Bart Simpson ribbeds. With their wonderful toy-like accessibility, it's like they're hot off the line from Wham-O.

Other works take into account the myths and hysteria that still, in this second decade of the pandemic, persist in disfiguring the face of AIDS, Maria Parasson's simple linedrawn monotypes are gentle but firm truths like, "You can't get AIDS from a telephone," or, "You can't get AIDS from tears."

Starting June 1, motorists traveling east along Detroit Road and hitting the West 28 Street intersection will face a powerful argument to the bogus idea that there are those who deserve AIDS. Laura Migliorino has designed

THE WHEEL

a billboard that features three well-known AIDS/HIV heroes; Magic Johnson, Ryan White and Rock Hudson. Each face looks out above the individual words "Victim? Sinner? Hero?" Though the questioning stance throws the ball in the lap of every driver who reads the sign, challenging sick misconceptions about who gets this disease and why, the bottom line of no escape makes such questions futile.

Death as the ultimate common denominator is central to the work of Mark Howard and Kathy Ilg. Howard's familiar use of paper cutouts and the intricate repetitive images that result is put to terrific force in Death, one of his strongest works. The large (55" x 87") acrylic is a macabre mix of laughing skeletons, bones and chains, in deep blues, red, peach and black. Kathy Ilg's No Waiting is a virtual scorecard of slash marks endlessly notated in multiples of five. She lets us know that someone is keeping track, tallying up the check. These works remind us that death makes no distinction between races, sexes or orientations. Ilg and Howard provide a grim slap capable of wiping the safe, cozy smugness right off your face.

Two other works seem almost ritual expressions. Benjamin Jones' papier mache AIDS Angel is an exorcism of rage. Names cover the angel's body in a roll-call of accountability for government neglect and ignorance. "Fuck George Bush" screams across the angel's belly, making no bones about who is responsible for the void in political leadership. Here we see again the repetition of slash marks tracking the dead and names, maybe, of those who've lost the fight. Dollar and cent signs on the angel's feet underscore the fiscal bottom line. Picture this angel swinging

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