Emerging from

ACT UP AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...

(AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) in 1988, Gran Fury was an

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

activist artist collective from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

consisting of 11 members including: Richard Elovich,

Avram Finkelstein Avram Finkelstein is an American artist, writer, gay rights activist and member of the AIDS art collective Gran Fury. Finkelstein describes himself as a "red diaper baby", raised by leftist parents who encouraged him to develop an interest in rad ...

, Amy Heard,

Tom Kalin Tom Kalin (born 1962) is a screenwriter, film director, producer, and professor of experimental film at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee. His debut feature, '' Swoon'', is considered an integral part of the New Queer Cinema. In addition to ...

, John Lindell, Loring McAlpin,

Marlene McCarty Marlene McCarty is a multidisciplinary artist and activist based in New York. She was a member of the AIDS collective Gran Fury and co-founded the trans-disciplinary design studio Bureau. Using everyday materials including graphite, ballpoint pen ...

Donald Moffett Donald Moffett (born January 20, 1955) is an American painter. Life and work Moffett was born in San Antonio, Texas, where he studied art and biology at Trinity University, earning a BA.AIDS. Gran Fury organized as an autonomous collective, describing themselves as a “...band of individuals united in anger and dedicated to exploiting the power of art to end the AIDS crisis.” The contribution of recycling historical images of homoerotic pleasure contributed to the pictorial landscape of the AIDS activist movement. Recycling the title of the Plymouth sedan used by

New York Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

, Richard Meyer writes, “ scribed within the group’s name...both a subjective experience (rage) and a tool of State power (police squad cars)," referencing "both an internal sensation and an external force.” Action, not art, was the aim of the collective. Producing posters and agitprop in alliance with ACT UP to accompany the larger group's demonstration, Gran Fury served, in the words of Adam Rolston and

Douglas Crimp John Douglas Crimp (August 19, 1944 July 5, 2019) was an American art historian, critic, curator, and AIDS activist. He was known for his scholarly contributions to the fields of postmodern theories and art, institutional critique, dance, film ...

, as ACT UP's “unofficial propaganda ministry and guerrilla graphic designers.” All of Gran Fury's work is in the public domain.

Methods

Gran Fury's appropriation of “...commercial language for political ends became the hallmark of the artists involved.” By re-purposing, reframing and re-circulating images to underscore their political agenda, Gran Fury was able to reach a plurality of identities and communities. AIDS does not discriminate, so there was an urgency to circulate information about this disease to the masses. Gran Fury member Loring McAplin observed the collectives mass-market ambition to “...fight for attention as hard as

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

fights for attention.” Before social media, the collective's appropriation of

mass-media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit information e ...

language and use of various materials including: fliers, posters, stickers, T-shirts, billboards, photographs and postcards, simultaneously produced provocative, informative, stylish, political and satirical public projects. By placing “...political information into environments where people are less accustomed to finding it…” articulates member Avram Finkelstein, catches the viewer off guard, revealing a new vocabulary and a new perspective on the AIDS health crisis. In Heywood's “The Crime of Being Posi+ive,” a person can be charged under the HIV Assault Act regardless of whether or not he or she infected or intended to infect another with HIV. In 1989, nine states had AIDS/HIV criminal laws, but by 2013, 32 states had these types of laws in place. Some legislatures believe that these laws are outdated since there were so many misconceived notions in the 1980s and “there was a general belief that this was potentially an epidemic that was going to spread into the general population, that was sort of a guaranteed death sentence, that was extremely transmissible.” 2013, Heywood, Todd A., "The Crime of Being Posi+ive," "Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost." An example of a work that provokes curiosity is their public intervention project where they swapped copies of

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

in coin-operated dispensers with their own The New York Crimes which resembled “...

but was full of information relating to the

AIDS crisis The AIDS epidemic, caused by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), found its way to the United States between the 1970s and 1980s, but was first noticed after doctors discovered clusters of Kaposi's sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia in homosexu ...

.”

Selected works

"Let the Record Show"

In July 1987,

William Olander William "Bill" R. Olander (July 14, 1950 – March 18, 1989) was an American senior curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City. He previously worked as curator and director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. He was a co-founder o ...

(1950–1989), an ACTUP member and curator of the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sc ...

, invited ACTUP to make an installation in "...the window by the museum entrance on Broadway". A neon SILENCE=DEATH symbol crowned the display, with a pink triangle below. The pink triangle was appropriated from the Nazi marker for gay men imprisoned at death camps furthering the analogy between the AIDS crisis and the Holocaust. The neon piece became part of the New Museum's permanent collection, and the SILENCE = DEATH graphic was widely disseminated through T-shirts, wheatpastes, and other printed ephemera. The graphic was a reaction to a 1985 editorial in ''The New York Times'' written by William F. Buckley as well as the silence by the Reagan government. Entitled ''Let the Record Show'' the work featured cardboard silhouettes of six public figures—televangelist

Jerry Falwell Jerry Laymon Falwell Sr. (August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007) was an American Baptist pastor, televangelism, televangelist, and conservatism in the United States, conservative activist. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, ...

, columnist

William F. Buckley Jr. William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...

, US Senator

Jesse Helms Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was an American politician. A leader in the conservative movement, he served as a senator from North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ...

, Cory Servaas of the Presidential AIDS Commission, an anonymous surgeon, and

President Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

—posited as AIDS criminals and set against a mural-sized photograph of the Nuremberg trials. Concrete slabs positioned under each figure offered evidence of their crimes, from misrepresentations of AIDS to ignoring the issue altogether as in the case of Reagan's notorious public silence, in the form of personal quotes. One reacted, for example, to a 1986

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

editorial by notorious arch-conservative William Buckley, who proposed that all persons with AIDS "...should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to protect the victimization of other homosexuals."

"Kissing Doesn't Kill"

The first high-stakes opportunity for Gran Fury came as part of a public-art project called "Art Against AIDS/On the Road" in 1989. As part of the project, Gran Fury presented a poster showing 3 couples, of which two featured Gran Fury members Mark Simpson and Robert Vazquez-Pacheco. The couples were of varying races, sexual orientation, and genders, kissing below the line, "Kissing Doesn't Kill: Greed and Indifference Do." Within a year, the poster was found on buses and subway platforms in San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Washington, DC. With the presentation of this piece, Gran Fury began to distance itself from ACT UP's general membership, eventually organizing themselves as a closed group.

Venice Biennale

In 1990, the group became notorious for its contribution to the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

, a.k.a. the “Pope Piece”: “The artwork paired two billboard-sized panels: one coupled the image of the

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

with a text about the church’s anti-safe-sex rhetoric; the other a two-foot-high erect penis with texts about women and condom use.” Typical of media indifference to the underlying issue, a May 28

report on the piece wrote "In fact, much of the talk about the Aperto among the hundreds of artists, curators, dealers and critics who have converged on this city during the last week has focused on two entries from the United States that have stirred interest more for their apparent capacity to shock than for anything else. Mr. Koons' entry is the first. The other, and for political reasons more important, is a set of posters by Gran Fury, a collective dedicated to issues involving

. One poster features a photograph of the Pope flanked by a text condemning the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

's policy toward sex and contraception. A week prior, Giovanni Carandente, the event's director of visual arts, said they considered excluding the poster. They told the Aperto's selection committee that they considered it to be blasphemous. Aggravating the problem was its proximity to a Gran Fury poster featuring a photograph of an erect penis (an image that would have caused more of a storm in the United States than a poster of the Pope). By Thursday, Mr. Carandente apparently reconsidered, and the posters were hanging at the Aperto. But on Saturday, the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

was reportedly deliberating about whether to ask the Italian Government to have the posters removed." Sexism Rears Its Unprotected Head Installation

Sexism Rears Its Unprotected Head Installation

Practicing Art/Activism

Gran Fury purposefully intervened into public and advertising spaces to disrupt the flow of normal thoughts with their own agenda. Notably, most of their work was directly exhibited to the public outside of traditional art spaces through fliers, posters, and billboards. They often recycled their own images and texts to circulate their message beyond its initial viewers. The collective aimed to push various individuals such as

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

, then New York Mayor

Ed Koch Edward Irving Koch ( ; December 12, 1924February 1, 2013) was an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, film critic, and television personality. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was may ...

, and

John Cardinal O'Connor John Joseph O'Connor (January 15, 1920 – May 3, 2000) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of New York from 1984 until his death in 2000, and was made a cardinal in 1985. He previously served as a U.S ...

to address the

AIDS pandemic The global epidemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of 2021, HIV/AI ...

in a more practical, open way, as well as to inform the public on the importance of safer sex and clean needles. When asked about their approach of their work, Gran Fury said: “We want the art world to recognize that collective direct action will bring an end to the AIDS crisis. . . . Whenever we can, we steer the art world projects into public spaces so that we can address audiences other than museum-going audiences or the readership of art magazines.” By the mid-1990s, Gran Fury found it hard to make simple works surrounding the AIDS pandemic, and started using more text - a necessity that made it hard for the group to relay messages as effectively as before. Gran Fury's final piece was entitled “Good Luck… Miss You, Gran Fury,” and was produced in 1995, a year before the death of member Mark Simpson. In the piece, presented at the New Museum, Gran Fury stated that the original agitprop art strategies they were using were ‘unable to communicate the complexities of AIDS issues'.

Participants

The 11 main members of Gran Fury:

Legacy

From January to March, 2012, the 80 WSE gallery at NYU presented the exhibition, ''Gran Fury: Read My Lips.'' The exhibition consisted of 15 pieces, most of which were re-created by Gran Fury from archival documentation. The show was accompanied by an 88-page catalogue, which was the first publication devoted to the group's production. Works in ''Gran Fury: Read My Lips.'' included, "Kissing Doesn't Kill," "Welcome to America," and "Women Don't Get Aids," reproduced in large-scale mural formats. There were also projections of "Kissing Doesn't Kills" video public service announcements, and several give-aways including "Men use Condoms" stickers in an edition of 3000 and postcards from the "Read My Lips" series. In April 2022, Bold Type Books published a history of Gran Fury by Jack Lowery entitled, ''It Was Vulgar & It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic''.

References

External links

Gran Fury--colllected works (high resolution downloads)

"Let the Record Show..." (New Museum)

"Gran Fury talks to Douglas Crimp" (Artforum)

* ttp://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/archivalcollections/pdf/granfury_0.pdf Gran Fury collection finding aid New York Public Library.
Gran Fury visual materials
at New York Public Library Digital Collections
1990 AIDS PSA by Gran Fury (Media Burn Archive)
{{Authority control Health and disability rights organizations in the United States HIV/AIDS activism Defunct LGBT organizations based in New York City LGBT art in the United States 1988 in LGBT history 1988 establishments in New York City Organizations established in 1988