ADAM LENZ
producer . curator . educator . artist
World AIDS Day Conversation
with Jack Lowery and Andrea Lawlor
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
December 1, 2022
Author Jack Lowery’s book It was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful (Bold Type Books, 2022) chronicles the work of Gran Fury, an artist collective which formed as the visual branch of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Gran Fury played a crucial role in defining the visual landscape of AIDS activism, utilizing art and design as a tool to campaign against corporate greed, government inaction, stigma, and public indifference to the AIDS epidemic. Lowery was joined in conversation by author Andrea Lawlor, whose novel Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl offers a speculative history of early ’90s identity politics during the heyday of ACT UP.
Before the conversation, guests were invited to view an installation of work by Donald Moffet, artist, AIDS activist, and founding member of Gran Fury. The installation marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Moffett's participation in MATRIX 134 at the Wadsworth and featured He Kills Me (1987), a work acquired in conjunction with the World AIDS Day program. Paul Wynne's Journal (1990), a video work by television broadcast journalist Paul Wynne, was also presented as a part of the installation. The work was first screened at the Wadsworth in 1990 in the MATRIX 112 exhibition, the first time the video journal was presented within a museum context. The installation was organized in partnership with curator Jared Quinton.
Program and installation images, World AIDS Day Conversation, 2022. Images courtesy of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.