A National Day of Discussion, Education, and Remembrance Lives On
by Diane Goettel

Day With(out) Art is an annual day of remembrance, action, and education that focuses on the many members of the artistic community who have been lost to AIDS while also disseminating important messages and information about HIV. The very first Day With(out) Art was held on December 1, 1989, organized as a day of observance, mourning, and action by a small group of arts professionals.

There are a number of ways that the day is observed. Some museums shroud certain collections or individual pieces of artwork, asking viewers to reflect on a life “with(out) art.” Others host performances or special exhibits, following the suggestion of the day’s founding nonprofit Visual AIDS, which put the “out” in parentheses—Day With(out) Art—to promote a day “with art,” one that offers artistic and other cultural responses to the pandemic. It is also quite common for museums to participate in a number of Day With(out) Art efforts. In almost all cases, museums and galleries use the day to inform and incite conversations within the communities that they serve.

Day With(out) Art celebrates its twenty-first year this month. The celebration comes with widespread observance by organizations, galleries, and museums of various sizes, scopes, and reaches. The message, however, is changing. In truth, the message has been changing on a consistent basis since the inaugural year of Day With(out) Art.

In addition to the changing message, Visual AIDS is no longer Day With(out) Art’s organizational hub. When I spoke with Amy Sadao, executive director of Visual AIDS, she explained to me that Day With(out) Art was, from the very beginning, set up so that it could become an autonomous entity. Now, finding ways to create dialogues about HIV and AIDS using art is a year-round project for Visual AIDS.

“We are proud that people observe Day With(out) Art,” explained Sadao. “As an organization our programs now are ongoing, year-round.” She went on to express that the rich history of artists responding to the pandemic, responses that include initiatives like The Ribbon Project and Day With(out) Art, continue to propel Visual AIDS and the work that they do.

This shift does not, however, spell the end of annual events meant to disseminate information about HIV and AIDS, incite conversations, and

mourn the many losses suffered by the artistic community. While Visual AIDS may have been the sphere wherein Day With(out) Art germinated, the day has become independent. There are hopeful signs that Day With(out) Art will exist for many years to come, with or without an overseeing organization.

This year Day With(out) Art will be observed throughout the United States and abroad. It will be observed in museums and galleries large and small and will also take to college campuses. The Getty in Los Angeles, The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and museums at Iowa State University, for example, will all participate in observance this year. While the core purposes of Day With(out) Art seem to have remained intact, the messages that are put forth as part of the day’s events have changed over the years. They have changed as the public understanding and attitude towards HIV and AIDS has changed, each message being crafted to better inform the public or to respond to the zeitgeist.

Studying the broadsides printed and distributed by Visual AIDS over the years reveals the many messages that have been a part of Day With(out) Art. Some messages have to do with educating the public about how important it is to have safe sex, others are directed at people who are HIV-positive and offer advice on how to look to the future with hope, and still others are directed toward the general public and call for a broader, more accepting understanding of HIV and AIDS. In more recent years, one of the common messages put forth as part of Day With(out) Art is that AIDS is still a very real issue.

The messages put forth during Day With(out) Art are also sometimes defined by the organizations that are observing the day and the specific communities that are served by those organizations. When I spoke with Nancy Girard, educator of visual literacy and learning at the Iowa State University Museums, she explained how the Day With(out) Art events on campus are tailored to college students. Girard explained that she feels that, being part of a public institution that serves 20,000 students, it is important to take this opportunity to educate young people. The two main campus groups involved in the events are S2S (short for Students To Students) and the Student Health Advisory Committee. While many Day With(out) Art events focus on disseminating information about the history of HIV and educating communities about prevention, these campus events are meant specifically to grab the attention of younger adults. University events include the shrouding of artwork, including all of the pieces within the campus sculpture garden, giving out free condoms, and disseminating statistical information about HIV
and AIDS.

While a specific community is being targeted by these events, the core messages are ultimately the same as messages found in Day With(out) Art events throughout the nation and abroad. When I spoke with Girard, she said, “It just seems more and more that [AIDS] is something that people are less concerned with or less aware of, that they have the false impression that it is not something to be worried about anymore.”

This is especially troublesome when it comes to college students who are often sexually active and are more likely than many other groups to have multiple sexual partners in a relatively short period of time. Girard explained that she hoped that the main goals of the campus events are education and prevention, but that the shrouding of art was an important element in getting the attention of the student body. “When you take art away for a day,” she said, “it opens peoples eyes to all of the beauty that is normally around them.”

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, which focuses its collection on 20th Century Canadian Modernism, has a long history of participation in Day With(out) Art and 2010 will be no exception. When I spoke with Bernard Doucet, director of development, he told me that the museum will participate this year by shrouding artwork in the principle gallery, specifically paintings that were made after the world became largely aware of AIDS. Furthermore, a portion of the admissions fees that are collected on December 1 will be donated to an AIDS charity. For The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, said Doucet, the purpose of their participation “is to remind people about the mission and the message of Day With(out) Art…this message is as relevant and important as it was before treatments were available.”

In 2009, The J. Paul Getty Museum observed Day With(out) Art by shrouding the sculpture Air by Aristide Maillol which is situated on the arrival plaza of the Getty Center. This year, however, The Getty has decided not to shroud any pieces of artwork. In an e-mail, John Giurini, J. Paul Getty Museum assistant director for public affairs, explained the 2010 efforts thusly:

“In order to broaden access to the Day With(out) Art message, we will not shroud an individual work, as we have in the past, but will instead include a reference to Day With(out) Art on ‘Today at the Getty,’ which are handouts given to visitors at the Getty Center and the Getty Villa, explaining the significance, and also provide highlighted information on getty.edu. We will [also use this information about] special Day With(out) Art tours in a blog post, which will reach a much larger number of on-line visitors.”

It’s quite clear, based on the varied and numerous organizations participating in Day With(out) Art 2010, that this annual day of discussion, education, and remembrance is ready to fly the coop. From The Getty in California to a campus in Iowa to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and many, many other places in between Day With(out) Art lives on. It continues to change and shift in terms of scope and message, but always with the same important purpose: to respond to the people who have been lost and to promote awareness and education about HIV.

For more information about the history of Day With(out) Art and for ideas about how to participate in years to come, visit www.visualaids.org.

Diane Goettel is executive editor of Black Lawrence Press. She lives in Hong Kong.

December 2010