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It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic
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About This Book
Shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize The story of art collective Gran Fury—which fought back during the AIDS crisis through direct action and community-made propaganda—offers lessons in love and grief. In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer people, intravenous drug users, and communities of color in America, and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out of the activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an art collective that called itself Gran Fury formed to campaign against corporate greed, government inaction, stigma, and public indifference to the epidemic. Writer Jack Lowery examines Gran Fury's art and activism from iconic images like the "Kissing Doesn't Kill" poster to the act of dropping piles of fake bills onto the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Lowery offers a complex, moving portrait of a collective and its members, who built essential solidarities with each other and whose lives evidenced the profound trauma of enduring the AIDS crisis. Gran Fury and ACT UP's strategies are still used frequently by the activists leading contemporary movements. In an era when structural violence and the devastation of COVID-19 continue to target the most vulnerable, this belief in the power of public art and action persists.
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Reviews
"Art had a major role in the movement, and as this testimonial lays out, the people behind the art stand as pillars of beautiful humanity."
"Lowery provides crucial context about the history of the AIDS epidemic and draws vivid sketches of key players in Gran Fury."
"The context of how the art was incubated makes this narrative essential to the history of the AIDS epidemic; as Lowery demonstrates, Gran Fury increased public awareness of AIDS by inventive use of art and unquestionably saved lives ..."
"Lowery is young...but writes like an old soul, scholarly and indignant at how AIDS was for so many years minimized and marginalized."
"A lively depiction of how graphic art can bring political activism to life."
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