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.