© 1998 Day Without Art Web Action Project 212/206-6674 x201 staff@creativetime.orgdwa archives
I was violently opposed to Day Without Art in its first year. Filled with the newly justified anger of ACT UP, I remember attending a meeting at The Museum of Modern Art and denouncing the remarks of the gathering's host, Philip Yenawine (who was later to become one of my best friends and main catalysts for the Estate Project.) At the time, the remembrance and mourning aspect of Day Without Art seemed to me to be a facile and sentimental statement in the face of a raging crisis.
Maybe it's the passing of a decade and the loss of the man that I loved but now Day With(out) Art seems perfectly in-tune with my emotional climate. I still think that I would rename the event "Day Without History" because that is what art has always been for me -- a way to capture a particular place in time. My own personal view has, I suppose, inevitably colored the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS as it has been developed over the years with my colleague and friend, Randy Bourscheidt. Our current focus on national archival programs certainly coincides with my personal agenda.
I am quite desperate these days to remember. I find myself forgetting faces and name and voices and smells. I find myself at the end of 1998 feeling as if it is the beginning of my life rather than 35 years into it. There is a discomforting sense that everything that existed before this moment has been erased.
So I have turned lately to the Internet as an enormous archive of text and images that represents some history of the events that have been important to my life or that have taken on importance in retrospect. All things archival fascinate me and the Internet is one tool for rediscovering my history and making it live.
My first years in New York were spent in typical abandon, reveling in the terrifying freedom and recognition of the style and accomplishments of gay men. In those days, nothing typified this style more than The Saint. Although I went seldom, it strikes me that this club was the apotheosis of a group of high-profile men whose legacy seems a bit hollow but still glittering all the same. How little remains is illustrated in a video interview with artist Copy Berg in which you can see The Saint being torn down through his studio window which is preserved in the New York Public Library. I was fascinated to find a site dedicated to The Saint that was created by a man who had never been there. His lover had been a fixture on the scene and, in tribute to his memory, he has created this recollection of an extraordinary scene.
The same men who spent winter weekends twirling under the stars of The Saint surely would not be without a summerhouse on Fire Island. Although The Saint has passed on, the culture of Fire Island still survives and is documented through the history of houses in sites such as Fools Paradise).
Equally important for me was the world of downtown New York performance that was pioneered by organizations such as Creative Time, The Kitchen (where I worked for several years) and Franklin Furnace. Franklin Furnace has bravely shifted its focus entirely to digital broadcast and an archive of its performance history. Although still fighting against the limitations of the medium, Franklin Furnace's experiment is a fascinating and worthwhile effort.
My focus on nightlife and performance (and the frequent intersection of the two) passed for me as the AIDS activist movement took shape and I found a home in the world of activism. As the Estate Project begins to preserve more than 1,000 hours of AIDS activist video to create the Royal S. Marks Collection of AIDS Activist Video at the New York Public Library , I find myself going more frequently to ACT UP for help in recalling the many valiant people I met in those days. Of course, there are many kinds of activism and the powerful work of the Names Project can also be viewed in a searchable name index.
The Estate Project is about to add to these archival resources in a significant way. On Day Without Art 1998, we launch our new website at http://www.artistswithaids.org that offers thousands of high-resolution images created by artists with AIDS. These images, residing in our Virtual Collection, form a very personal picture of a culture devastated by a disease but refusing to yield its creativity and individuality. Working in partnership with organizations such as Visual AIDS, Visual AIDS Boston, Visual Aid San Francisco and the LA Gay and Lesbian Center, we have created a central resource for curators, historians and the general public. I think you will be quite astonished by both the content and the technology. Our hope is that as the ability to deliver moving images on the Internet improves, we will also include AIDS activist video, experimental film, dance and other art forms that we are preserving.
I invite you to reconstruct your history on the Internet using the many tools that are available. Organizations like the Estate Project hope to provide you with the raw material for new memories.
© 1998 Day Without Art Web Action Project 212/206-6674 x201 staff@creativetime.orgdwa archives