“ACT UP New York” is an invitation to dialogue. “This exhibition is an invitation to go deeper and think about the political, social, and cultural components of the AIDS crisis, and the fact that it continues, and it’s not over,” Marine says.
Yet the very gesture of gathering visual media from the movement into a gallery is to fix ACT UP in time, and to soften its message that the AIDS crisis is ongoing.
“The fact of representing this exhibition as a historical moment is mixed for me,” Grace says.
Still whether or not “ACT UP New York” will impress the pertinence of the AIDS crisis upon the Harvard population, it serves as an important demonstration of the poignancy of the visual arts.
Citing a principle objective of the exhibition Grace says, “One of them is simply the understanding of the fact that collective organizing and its intersection with visual art can have a real effect on our culture, which is something that I think our generation, yours and mine, is not that in touch with, for whatever reason.”
—Staff writer Susie Y. Kim can be reached at yedenkim@fas.harvard.edu.