Day Without Art boosts AIDS
awareness
Art exhibits shrouded in memory of
AIDS-related deaths
By Rodney Tanaka
A walk through the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden today
provides students with a sobering reminder of the impact of
AIDS.
Sculptures are shrouded in observance of the sixth annual Day
Without Art, a program uniting organizations worldwide for a day of
mourning, remembrance and action for people affected by AIDS.
UCLA student organizations are commemorating the day with
several events in addition to the shrouded sculptures as part of
World AIDS Day, held annually on Dec. 1 as part of a national
campaign aimed at educating the public about the disease.
This unified front against AIDS was developed by Visual AIDS, a
volunteer organization of artists and art professionals using the
power of the arts in the fight against the disease.
The organization came together in 1988 because "we kept meeting
each other at memorial services and funerals," said Visual AIDS
executive director Patrick O’Connell. "Our conversations were about
trying to measure the immeasurable, the loss we were all
experiencing."
Visual AIDS developed Day Without Art in 1989 to memorialize
friends and colleagues and to address the social context of the
illness. Initially involving 1,100 institutional participants, Day
Without Art now involves 6,200 organizations worldwide.
"The art community is providing the media with a new way of
talking about AIDS at least once a year," O’Connell said. "One of
the messages we’ve tried to get across is that no one should be
able to ignore the impact AIDS has had on the world."
Artwork by artists affected by AIDS are on display in the
Kerckhoff Art Gallery until Dec. 16. The AIDS Vigil Parade,
beginning at 11:45 a.m. at Westwood Plaza, will lead participants
to Perloff Quad.
There, students can interact with guest speakers Henry Hopkins,
chair of the UCLA Art Department, biology professor Roger Bohman
and Glen Gaylord of AIDS Project Los Angeles.
Students can participate by wearing black clothes and red
ribbons. Ribbons will be distributed all week on Bruin Walk between
11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Other activities include a candlelight vigil at 5:50 p.m. at the
Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, a free screening of Fear of
Disclosure  five short documentary pieces created to promote
AIDS awareness and education  and readings by Richard Howard
at the Armand Hammer Museum.
"Day Without Art will make people aware that there is a great
drain from this disease and that people need to support the
research in finding a cure," said Irene Martin, exhibitions manager
at the J. Paul Getty Museum, one of many art organizations
participating in the event. "In the arts, especially the museum
world, there have been very few of us who don’t know someone
personally who has died from the complications of AIDS."
The J. Paul Getty Museum will shroud several works and dedicate
them to staff members and professional colleagues who have died
because of AIDS-related complications.
The shrouded pieces at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Natural History
will be accompanied by information pertaining to the work. "En
Calavera: The Papier-Mâché Art of the Linares Family"
will be enshrouded and will pay homage to Robert Childs,
collections manager of Fowler who died of AIDS-related
complications in 1989. Childs was responsible for building Fowler’s
Linares collection.
The Armand Hammer Museum offers free admission and red ribbons
to visitors today to commemorate Day Without Art. The museum will
feature a parking meter that plays recordings of artists and
writers who are HIV-positive. When the meter runs out of money, the
patron hears only silence.
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is waiving admission
during Day Without Art and will ask for donations to help fund AIDS
projects. The museum will feature readings from the AIDS Project
Los Angeles Creative Workshop and from Los Angeles artists.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) will dim the
galleries holding their permanent collection of contemporary art.
Robert Longo’s "Black Planet (for A.Z.)," a work dedicated to
dancer and choreographer Arnie Zane, will be shrouded, and the
lamps in Christian Boltanski’s "Reliquary" will remain illuminated
to symbolize hope for the future. Every 10 minutes a bell will toll
in the museum’s Times Mirror Central Court. Based on Centers for
Disease Control statistics, each toll signifies one more death by
AIDS.