Warhol Museum covers walls with blood for World AIDS Day
To commemorate World AIDS Day, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh covered one of its galleries with queer blood.
Jordan Eagles, a New York based artist who has been
exploring the aesthetics and ethics of blood as an artistic medium since the
late 1990s, teamed with the museum on December 1 to take over a section of its
current exhibition, “Andy Warhol: Revelation,” with an immersive light installation
called “Illuminations, ruminating on the politics around queer blood, the
prejudice facing LGBTQ people because of the stigma of HIV, and the FDA’s
discriminatory blood ban against men who have sex with men.
The abstract panels created by Eagles to use in the
projections were created with blood donated by 59 gay, bisexual, and
transgender men—most of whom use PrEP, according to The
Art Newspaper.
Other works by Eagles were included, such as “Vinci
(Illuminations),” a recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” in blood,
which provokes debate over whether $450 million+ price recently paid for the
Renaissance masterwork might have been more wisely spent on medical research
that could advance the progress toward a cure.
Talking about the installation, Eagles said, “With
my work I want viewers to experience blood in a way that expresses our common
humanity and our ability to save lives. I also want viewers to experience the
energy of blood and to question more about these key policy issues and health
implications at play.”
Chief curator José Diaz called Eagles’ installation “a dynamic and moving presentation.”
Published at Mon, 02 Dec 2019 03:27:04 +0000