Bill Bytsura ACT UP Photography Collection
Call Number
Dates
Creator
Extent
Language of Materials
Abstract
Bill Bytsura is a photographer who extensively documented ACT UP and other unaffiliated AIDS awareness movements across the United States and in Europe throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. The collection includes studio-style portraits of each activist, along with their personal statements. Portraits include prominent activists such as Larry Kramer, Ann Northrop, Tim Bailey, Luke Sissyfag Montgomery, Didier Lestrade, Peter Staley, and Terry Stogdell. The collection also documents AIDS demonstrations, political funerals, and related publications.
Biographical Note
Bill Bytsura is an American photographer born in 1956 in Plattsburg, New York. Bytsura moved to New York City in 1980 and lived in the East Village for 30 years. A self-taught photographer, he began his photography career after finding his father's old Minolta SRT–101 camera and becoming fascinated by what it could capture.
During the late 1980s, after the death of his partner, Randy Northup, he was prominent in the AIDS activist movement. He became a member of ACT UP and joined the ACT UP Media Committee with fellow member Jay Blotcher. Bytsura started his AIDS activist project as a way to shed light on the disparity between how AIDS activists were being portrayed in the media and how he saw them at the meetings and protests.
Bytsura began the AIDS activist project in New York City in 1989, and continued to photograph AIDS activists throughout the United States and parts of Europe throughout the 1990s. The work consists of studio-style black and white portraits of each activist, accompanied by a personal statement. In 1992 Bytsura went, camera in hand, to the AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, and in 1993 to the AIDS Conference in Berlin. He documented AIDS activists in Paris, as well as Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Atlanta, Miami, and Puerto Rico. This work was shown in numerous galleries in the East Village, and was included in the exhibit "Don't Leave Me This Way, Art in the Age of AIDS" at the Australian National Gallery in 1995. Bytsura's work has appeared in several magazines, including The New York Times Magazine.
Bill Bytsura moved to Panama City, Panama in 2011. He is currently working on photography projects with foundations whose goal is to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds find opportunity and hope through music. He is additionally working on a project photographing the people of Panama as they are now, as the country goes through major growth, to preserve the words and faces of the Panamanian people.
Arrangement
This collection is arranged into the following series. All series are arranged alphabetically except for Series II, which is arranged chronologically.
Series I: Portraits contains photographs, contact sheets, negatives, release forms and statements. The dates finding aid dates reflect the date of printing. When identifiable, the release forms have been left together with photographs. There is a separate folder titled "release forms" for unidentified release forms.
Series II: Demonstrations contains photographs, contact sheets, negatives and slides. The finding aid dates reflect the date of printing, as that was the photographer's method of notation. In some instances, the dates of printing are the same or extremely close to the estimated date of the event the prints describe. In other instances, the dates of printing are separated by a few years from the event. In this case, the date of the event, if known, is included in the title. Negatives that were found loose have been separated by year, and may contain some portraits as well as documentation of demonstrations or events.
Series III: Press, Promotion, and Adminstrative Files includes articles and magazines featuring Bytsura's work, as well as promotional materials and objects such as t-shirts, a hat and buttons, and a few administrative items such as budgets.
Series IV: Ephemera includes a hat, t-shirts, stickers, pins and postcards.
Oversize materials are listed at the end of the finding aid:
Series I Oversize: Portraits
Series II Oversize: Demonstrations
Series III Oversize: Press, Promotion, and Adminstrative Files
Series IV Oversize: Posters
Scope and Content
The Bill Bytsura ACT UP Photography collection documents AIDS activism across the United States and Europe from 1989 through the late 1990's. Portraits include prominent activists such as Larry Kramer, Ann Northrop, Tim Bailey, Luke Sissyfag Montgomery, Didier Lestrade, Peter Staley, and Terry Stogdell. The collection also documents demonstrations, political funerals, and related publications.
The collection consists of photographs, contact sheets, negatives, and slides; press in the form of magazines and articles; promotional materials such as t-shirts, hats, and buttons; printed ephemera such as posters, postcards, flyers, and stickers, and administrative files, including release forms and correspondence.
Subjects
Genres
People
Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open to researchers. Please contact the Fales Library and Special Collections, fales.library@nyu.edu, 212-998-2596.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection, which was created by Bill Bytsura, was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder. Please contact the Fales Library and Special Collections, fales.library@nyu.edu, 212-998-2596.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date (if known); Bill Bytsura ACT UP Photography Collection; MSS 313; box number; folder number; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University Libraries.
Provenance
The Bill Bytsura ACT UP Photography Collection was donated to NYU's Fales Library by Bill Bytsura in 2011.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Born-digital materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers.
About this Guide
Processing Information
The collection was reprocessed in February 2015 to address preservation concerns. Box numbers were changed.
