Visual AIDS Records
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Abstract
Visual AIDS is a New York City-based contemporary arts organization committed to HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness whose mission is accomplished through projects which support artists living with the disease, as well as honor and preserve the legacies of artists who have died from this disease. This collection documents an organization formed as a reaction to the AIDS crisis during the late 1980s through the lens of the artistic community and their active response at that time and the proceeding decades. The Visual AIDS Records (1986-2025, ongoing) document the daily administrative activities of the organization since its inception in 1988, as well as documenting the organization's key initiatives including a Day With(out) Art, Electric Blanket, and The Archive Project. Materials within this collection include archived websites, correspondence, Board meeting minutes, notes, press clippings, press kits, press clippings, memorabilia, calendars, and video and audio recordings related to events. This collection also contains promotional brochures, forms, and posters for exhibitions, benefit events, and general programming, as well as collectible broadside graphic art posters created by various artists which were distributed to organizations and used as a promotional tool for the organization. A small selection of individual artists' files contained in this collection typically include artist statements, press clippings, resumes, as well as artwork images in the form of slides and photographs.
Historical Note
Visual AIDS is a New York-based nonprofit founded in 1988 by curators and critics William Olander, Robert Atkins, Thomas Sokolowski, and Gary Garrels. The organization uses art to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and supports artists living with the virus. Visual AIDS preserves the work of HIV+ artists and honors the cultural contributions of the AIDS movement through art exhibitions, public forums, and publications. Visual AIDS also organizes Day With(out) Art, an annual event that encourages arts organizations worldwide to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS. The nonprofit collaborates with galleries and art institutions, supports the creation of new artwork, and provides a platform for community-building within safe spaces.
Arrangement
Organized into five series, one of which is arranged into subseries:
Series I. Administrative Records
Series II. Projects and Exhibitions
Series III. Day With(out) Art
Series IV. Electric Blanket
Series V. The Archive Project
Subseries V.A. Project Documentation
Subseries V.B. Exhibitions
Subseries V.C. Artists' Files
Material within each series is arranged chronologically and grouped by subject, with the exception of Subseries V.C., which is arranged in alphabetical order.
Scope and Contents
The Visual AIDS Records (1986–2025, ongoing) document the administrative and programming activities of Visual AIDS, a contemporary arts organization based in New York City. This organization was a reaction to the AIDS crisis during the late 1980s, where an urgent need arose to find a way to preserve and document artists and their artworks who live with or have passed away from AIDS. This collection contains a wide range of administrative materials created by Visual AIDS including correspondence, Board meeting minutes, office calendars, notes, publications, awards, press clippings, promotional materials, memorabilia, and analog audio and visual recordings. It also contains archived websites that document the organization's web presence beginning in 2016.
Work files within this collection represent an organization dedicated to creating and fostering AIDS awareness by showcasing artists with AIDS and their experiences through visual art projects, exhibitions, publications and special events. These work files typically contain notes, promotional material, correspondence, drafts, and photographs for these various projects and events, including The Ribbon Project, the Broadsides Project, Mapping No Boundaries, Share Your Vision, as well as events including A Big Fat Hairy Deal Benefit, VaVa Voom!, and gallery opening parties.
Documentation for Day With(out) Art, created to celebrate and mourn artists with AIDS or HIV positive on AIDS Awareness Day, includes posters, press clippings; promotional forms and fliers; and participant event promotional material. Planning files, participant forms, and photographs for a related event, Night Without Light, are also in this collection. Electric Blanket art installation notes, planning files, and venue promotional material are in this collection as well as original image slides and sound recordings used in the installation. The Archive Project material in this collection contains founding documentation for the project, exhibition files, and a small selection of individual artists' files.
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Visual AIDS Records; MSS 503; box number; folder number or item identifier; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University.
To cite the archived website in this collection: Identification of item, date; Visual AIDS Records; MSS 503; Wayback URL; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Nelson Santos on behalf of Visual AIDS in late June 2017. The accession number associated with this gift is 2017.179.
http://visualaids.org/, https://vava.visualaids.org/, https://dwa.visualaids.org/, https://postcards.visualaids.org/, https://secure.givelively.org/donate/visual-aids-for-the-arts-inc/vava-voom-2020-not-business-as-usual/, http://vava2021.visualaids.org/, https://dwa2021.visualaids.org/, https://sites.google.com/visualaids.org/dwa2022/, and https://video.visualaids.org/ were initially selected as part of the NYC Arts Community COVID-19 Response Web Collection in May 2020-October 2022. In October 2022, crawling of the seeds were discontinued in NYC Arts Community COVID-19 Response Web Collection and crawling began in the Visual AIDS Web Collection. The website was captured through the use of Archive-It. Archive-It uses web crawling technology to capture websites at a scheduled time and displays only an archived copy, from the resulting WARC file, of the website. The accession numbers associated with these websites are 2022.051 and 2023.020. In November 2023, https://www.oralhistories.visualaids.org/ was added. The accession number associated with this website is 2023.060. In May 2024, https://art-aids-action.tumblr.com/ was added. The accession number associated with this website is 2024.024.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact Fales Library and Special Collections, special.collections@nyu.edu, 212-998-2596 with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Born-Digital Access Policies and Procedures
Advance notice is required for the use of computer records. Original physical digital media is restricted. An access terminal for born-digital materials in the collection is available by appointment for reading room viewing and listening only. Researchers may view an item's original container and/or carrier, but the physical carriers themselves are not available for use because of preservation concerns.
Appraisal
In January 2022, curators reappraised and discarded a suitcase that arrived with the collection.
In 2025, the following were removed from the collection during processing: duplicates of publications, fliers, and press clippings; 2 t-shirts; 2 bowling shirts; 5 cloth tote bags; 88 VHS, 3 DVD, 2 U-Matic, 2 audiocassettes (these were either off-air or commercial recordings); and 19 born-digital carriers (duplicates of existing paper material in the collection). Multiple packets of lube and condoms were removed from the collection at the suggestion of conservators due to the fact that these items were not unique and that they had the possibility of damaging nearby items if their enclosures were to rupture. A small number of artists' individual files were removed from the collection after notes within the files indicated they did not wish their files to remain in the collection.
Take Down Policy
Archived websites are made accessible for purposes of education and research. NYU Libraries have given attribution to rights holders when possible; however, due to the nature of archival collections, we are not always able to identify this information.
If you hold the rights to materials in our archived websites that are unattributed, please let us know so that we may maintain accurate information about these materials.
If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on this website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), you may request the removal of the material from our site by submitting a notice, with the elements described below, to the special.collections@nyu.edu.
Please include the following in your notice: Identification of the material that you believe to be infringing and information sufficient to permit us to locate the material; your contact information, such as an address, telephone number, and email address; a statement that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed and that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury; and your physical or electronic signature. Upon receiving a notice that includes the details listed above, we will remove the allegedly infringing material from public view while we assess the issues identified in your notice.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Decisions made prior to the collection's arrival at New York University are unknown. Many boxes arrived at NYU underfilled or overfilled, requiring all of the collection's original folders to be placed in new, acid-free boxes and requiring the box-level inventory provided by the donor to be updated. A number of oversized materials were also relocated to larger, flat boxes and shelving units, and slide projector equipment was removed from the collection. During rehousing, all materials were surveyed and described, including audio-visual materials. Excessive duplicate materials, including some ephemera and clippings, were removed in order to be offered back to the donor.
In 2022-2024, the archived websites were added to the resource record.
In 2025 paper material was placed in acid-free folders and manuscript boxes. Oversized material was foldered and housed appropriately according to its size. The "Play Smart" trading card packets were assessed by conservators and the condoms and lube packets were removed from the collection due to the potential of their deterioration and subsequent damage to paper in the collection. The trading cards were foldered and appropriately housed. Audiovisual material was labeled and individually listed in the inventory.
The majority of the physical audiovisual material were identified as commercial recordings, off-air recordings, or outside the scope of NYU's collecting practices and were separated from the collection. The retained audiovisual material were numbered, labeled, and listed individually within their appropriate series inventory.
20 optical discs were forensically imaged, analyzed, and arranged in Forensic Toolkit.
New York University Libraries follow professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the content.
