More about the 1989 Artists Space protests featured in Laura Poitras's All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.
This Sunday marks the 95th Academy Awards, and for the first time ever, a film featuring Media Burn footage is nominated for best documentary. Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed follows the life and work of photographer Nan Goldin, known for capturing intimate moments of LGBTQ life, and her quest to hold the Sackler family accountable for their role in the opioid epidemic.
In 1989, Goldin had curated an exhibition at Artists Space, a non-profit art gallery and organization in Tribeca, called “Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing.” The installation showcased works produced by people who suffered from, and had lost loved ones to, AIDS and was partially funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an independent federal agency created by Lyndon B. Johnson in the 60s to fund artistic endeavors. At the time of the exhibition’s opening, Nan had been the first to curate a group exhibition about AIDS at Artist Space.
WHEN I WAS TOLD THAT I’D CONTRACTED THIS VIRUS IT DIDN’T TAKE ME LONG TO REALIZE I’D CONTRACTED A DISEASED SOCIETY AS WELL.
David Wojnarowicz, Post Cards From America: X-Rays From Hell
The exhibition catalog featured a scathing essay by the AIDS activist and East Village artist, David Wojnarowicz, who accuses the Catholic Church and American politicians of causing the death of thousands of people due to AIDS via their conservative acts against sex education, contraception, and AIDS funding.
After the catalog was published, John Frohnmayer, then chairman of the NEA, withdrew their funding of the exhibition, stating that, “[the NEA found] the material [to be] political rather than artistic in nature”. Outraged, many artists took to the streets to protest the blatant act of homophobia, calling for the resignation of Frohnmayer and an end to federal censorship of the arts. As a result of the protests, the NEA was pressured to reinstate their funding.
This footage, shot by Skip Blumberg for The 90’s but never edited or screened, depicts those protests. If not for Media Burn, the footage would have been lost to history. It’s a great example of how our work of saving and digitizing camera original footage preserves important cultural history and leads to new works of art.
[As always, follow the link for the full footage.]
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