Tacoma-Based Artist and Curator Rock Hushka Helps Create a Different Frame for Understanding the Pandemic by Karen Fleur Tofti-Tufarelli When Rock Hushka—co-curator of the art exhibit “Art, AIDS, America” slated to open in 2012 or 2013—was browsing through a renowned New York City independent bookstore around 2006, he looked for new information about HIV/AIDS. “I thought it would be easy,” Hushka says, “but the section was in the basement, on the bottom shelf; under a table; in the back corner….” He realized, then, he says, [...]

A New Exhibit Proves It Takes at Least Two to Play Hide and Seek by Chael Needle There’s a danger that “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” currently running at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., will become known as the exhibition whose hosting institution, the Smithsonian, censored a work by an artist who has come to have a major influence on how we understand AIDS. This happened on the eve of World AIDS Day. And that work is a four-minute video excerpt [...]