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, a mission that the organization accomplishes through a number of visual art projects, by supporting artists living with the disease, and by honoring and preserving the legacies of artists who have passed away from HIV/AIDS-related complications. The Visual AIDS Records not only document the daily administrative activities of the organization since its inception in 1988, but the archival collection also documents a few of the organization's key initiatives, including the Broadsides Project, the Red Ribbon Project, The Frank Moore Archive Project, a Day With(out) Art, Electric Blanket, and A Night Without Light. Materials include archived websites, correspondence, meeting minutes, notes, proposals, financial documents, newsletters, awards, slides, photographs, audio-visual recordings, press kits, periodicals, clippings, fliers, calendars; tote bags, and t-shirts. The collection also contains original design layouts by Group Material, materials that document artist Nan Goldin's contribution to Electric Blanket, and original prints and poster designs by artists like Barbara Kruger and Glenn Ligon.
Historical Note
Visual AIDS is a New York City based contemporary arts organization committed to HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness, a mission which the organization accomplishes through a number of visual art projects, by supporting artists living with the disease, and by honoring and preserving the legacies of artists who have passed away from HIV/AIDS-related complications. Visual AIDS produces public, inclusive, and accessible art projects that encourage reflection, dialogue, new scholarship and action. In addition to their exhibitions, public events, and publications, the organization collaborates year-round with teachers and students to facilitate research and special projects that address the underlying and related issues that contribute to and exacerbate the HIV/AIDS pandemic, such as poverty, homophobia, and racism.
Each year the organization produces and distributes thousands of free, AIDS awareness, artist editions through their Broadsides Project. The Ribbon Project was created in 1991 by the Visual AIDS Artists Caucus, a group of artists who wanted to create a visual symbol to demonstrate compassion for people living with AIDS and to acknowledge their caregivers. The Archive Project (later renamed The Frank Moore Archive Project in 2002) was co-founded in 1994 by David Hirsch and Frank Moore who were concerned about losing a visual record of the artwork created by artists with HIV. Working with many living artists and estates, their efforts resulted in a slide archive that was used to teach others about AIDS art activism and the lasting importance of HIV+ visual artists. Since 2012, many of these slides have been digitized and re-launched online as The Visual AIDS Artist Registry.
A Day Without Art (later renamed a Day With(out) Art in 1998), established in 1989, has encouraged numerous communities worldwide to remember those who have passed away from AIDS-related illnesses on the first of December, World AIDS Day, each year. A related project known as Electric Blanket began on December 1, 1990 which detailed demographics, data, and slogans about AIDS worldwide. Similarly, A Night Without Light was also launched by Visual AIDS in 1990 to coincide with a Day Without Art, an initiative that calls for the lights on Manhattan's historic buildings, bridges, monuments and on Broadway's theatre marquees to be turned off for fifteen minutes, from 7:45 PM to 8:00 PM, as a visual reminder of the impact of AIDS. San Francisco has also dimmed its skyline in more recent years.
In 2014, Visual AIDS began commissioning short videos from artists and filmmakers, and has screened and distributed these videos as part of Day With(out) Art every year since. In response to COVID-19 in 2020, they posted community resources and created online exhibits that put COVID-19 pandemic in relation to the AIDS epidemic. Additionally, they shifted many of the projects and fundraising, such as VAVA, Day With(out) Art, and Postcards from the Edge, to online events.
Arrangement
This collection has not been arranged by an archivist. The materials are arranged in the order in which they were received from the donor. Decisions made regarding arrangement prior to acquisition have not been recorded.
Scope and Contents
The Visual AIDS Records (1988-2024, ongoing) document the everyday administrative activities of the New York City based contemporary arts organization Visual AIDS. Additionally, the collection documents several of Visual AIDS' ongoing projects, including the Broadsides Project, the Red Ribbon Project, The Frank Moore Archive Project, a Day With(out) Art, Electric Blanket, and A Night Without Light. Materials include correspondence; meeting minutes; notes; proposals; invoices, receipts, and other financial documents; newsletters; awards; slides; photographs; audio-visual recordings; press kits; art-related periodicals; clippings; fliers; posters; oversize calendars; tote bags; and t-shirts. The collection also contains original design layouts by Group Material, materials that document artist Nan Goldin's contribution to Electric Blanket, and original prints and poster designs by artists like Barbara Kruger and Glenn Ligon. The collection also includes the web presence of the organization, starting in 2016.
Subjects
Organizations
Donors
Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restriction.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright (or related rights to publicity and privacy) for materials in this collection created by Visual AIDS was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Visual AIDS Records; MSS 503; box number; folder number; 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@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Appraisal
In January 2022, curators reappraised and discarded a suitcase that arrived with 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
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 that still require reformatting, and excessive duplicate materials, including some ephemera and clippings, were removed in order to be offered back to the donor.
Decisions made during pre-processing prior to the collection's arrival at New York University have yet to be recorded.
In 2022-2024, the archived websites were added to the resource record.
