News & Press
CBS NEW YORK: World AIDS Day memorial held in West Village
Thursday is World AIDS Day, and for the first time since 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, the names of New Yorkers we've lost were read at a memorial in the West Village. As CBS2's Alice Gainer reports, while today is a day to remember, it's also a day to raise awareness about the ongoing fight against HIV/AIDS.
GAY CITY NEWS: What to do in queer NYC November 24-December 1
Gay City News lists the New York City AIDS Memorial’s World AIDS Day observance as a thing to do this week and includes mention of the Out of the Darkness Vigil.
T MAGAZINE: Imagining a Memorial to an Unimaginable Number of Covid Deaths
T Magazine writes about memorials, including the New York City AIDS Memorial, mentioning our AIDS Memorial Quilt-Making Workshops at the Whitney which took place in October. The author, Mark Harris, writes: “I think of grief and anger whenever I walk through New York City’s AIDS Memorial, an open space in the West Village that was completed in 2016 by the Manhattan-based Studio AI Architects … I love the fact that it is built on a triangular island with a design created out of dozens of triangles, a shape uniquely meaningful in the L.G.B.T.Q. movement and a statement that the site is intended to memorialize activism as well as loss.”
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: New Yorkers mark 35th anniversary of AIDS Memorial Quilt by adding to the 54-ton folk art piece
To mark the 35th anniversary of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, New Yorkers who lost loved ones or whose lives have been impacted by HIV will have a chance to add to the 54-ton tapestry this weekend. The New York City AIDS Memorial is hosting workshops at the Whitney Museum this weekend for locals to work alongside artists to create new panels to add to the quilt, honoring the memory of those lost and raising awareness about the devastating disease that has killed more than 40.1 million people worldwide since 1981.
MAHARAM STORIES: The AIDS Memorial Quilt by Gert McMullin
Gert McMullin is one of the six activists who cofounded the AIDS Memorial Quilt in San Francisco in 1987 and has served as the Quilt’s conservator ever since. In partnership with the National AIDS Memorial and Maharam, we hosted a series of public quilt-making workshops at the Whitney Museum on October 14 and 15, 2022 to mark the Quilt's thirty-fifth anniversary. Read more from Gert here.
WASHINGTON POST: Monkeypox is rousing old fears — and ways gay men care for each other
In a changed world, gay men still feel the anxiety (and lessons) of the darker days of HIV/AIDS. Article features quotes by New York City AIDS Memorial Board Member Eric Sawyer
GAY CITY NEWS: New York City AIDS Memorial hosts silent disco
DJ Lady Bunny and DJ Lina headlined a “Dance for Memorial” silent disco event at the New York City AIDS Memorial on June 29. Participants wore headphones and danced away in the area surrounding the memorial at West 12th Street and Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich Village.
METROPOLIS: Songs of Activism and Solidarity Adorn New York City’s AIDS Memorial
One critical goal of public art is to engage with every passerby in order to foster a dialogue within communities. For multimedia artist, Steven Evans, music is just one way of achieving this. After coming of age during the height of the United States’ AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, Evans has drawn inspiration from his youth’s pop songs for his latest temporary installation at New York City’s AIDS Memorial. The result memorializes and celebrates the queer struggle—then and now.
ARTNET NEWS: Editors’ Picks: 11 Events for Your Art Calendar This Week
At the beginning of Pride Month, the New York City AIDS Memorial unveiled Steven Evans’s Songs of a Memorial (through September 6), adorning the permanent monument with 12 text-based, polychromatic, LED sculptures. To celebrate the close of the month-long celebration, DJ Lady Bunny and DJ Lina Bradford will lead a silent disco at the site—just leave an ID or a credit card for a free set of headphones.
W MAGAZINE: The Story Behind Silence=Death, an Icon of the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement
Few graphics are as instantly recognizable as the “Silence=Death” poster created in 1986 by the American artist Avram Finkelstein and the Silence=Death Collective. Speaking at NADA New York in early May with executive director of the NYC AIDS Memorial organization Dave Harper, Finkelstein recalled the conception of the poster and its subsequent meaning almost 40 years later.
NY DAILY NEWS: What to do, where to be to celebrate Pride Month 2022
The New York City AIDS Memorial is offering a Pride Weekend cool-down with a silent disco dance party featuring two LGBTQ dance floor icons, DJ Lady Bunny and DJ Lina Bradford. This free, community-focused Pride celebration will follow “Meet Me on the Dance Floor,” a storytelling event where people will share stories about the nightlife, partying, clubs, and connecting under the disco ball.
ARTSPACE MAGAZINE: How Steven Evans turned two disco classics into one timeless neon work
Steven Evans knows how a moment on the dancefloor can echo down the years. Over the past three decades, this Houston-based multimedia artist, writer and curator has explored the connections between music, language, memory, identity, and collectivity via his sculptural and installation work.
POZ: Do You Wanna Funk at an AIDS Memorial?
Dancing at an AIDS memorial? How could you not, when you hear upbeat anthems like “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),” “It’s Raining Men,” “Why,” “All Around the World” and “Never Can Say Goodbye.” Spanning the 1970s and ’80s, these dance floor classics were part of the soundtrack for the generation of young adults first decimated by HIV and AIDS. The tracks are also the inspiration for Songs for a Memorial, the latest art installation and related programming—including a silent disco and storytelling event—at the New York City AIDS Memorial.
ESSAY: Jeanne Vaccaro on Steven Evans’ “Songs for a Memorial”
Scholar-curator Jeanne Vaccaro writes about Steven Evans' new, site-specific installation - "Songs for a Memorial" - at the New York City AIDS Memorial, on view through September 6, 2022.
INTERIOR DESIGN: New York City AIDS Memorial named a new iconic project in New York City
Nearly 500 designers, architects, and manufacturers gathered at One Penn Plaza in Manhattan on May 10 to celebrate the winners and honorees of the 7th annual NYCxDESIGN Awards. Studio AI Architects was named a winner in the Iconic Project category for the New York City AIDS Memorial.
POETS.ORG: At the New York City AIDS Memorial by Stefania Gomez
Poet Stefania Gomez writes about visiting the New York City AIDS Memorial in this poem, published March 10, 2022, on poets.org
THE BODY: No, We Didn’t ‘Lose an Entire Generation’ to AIDS
“The claim that we “lost an entire generation” to AIDS erases LGBTQ older adults who are very much alive, and it erases long-term HIV survivors, regardless of sexual orientation.” The article includes mention of “REVIVAL: Survivors’ Stories,” our program with The Generations Project.
GAY CITY NEWS: Honoring Activism, Humor, Sex, and Love
As darkens descended on the New York City AIDS Memorial in the West Village on December 1, 10 activists who, in the words of one, have long been “thriving” with HIV paid tribute to an equal number of writers, poets, and novelists who fell to the first of the pandemics we encountered in our lives.
CBS NEW YORK: New Yorkers Reflect & Look Forward On World AIDS Day
In Greenwich Village, dozens of people gathered at the New York City AIDS Memorial Park. The event started with poetry reading followed by a candlelight vigil.
NY1: NYC marks 33rd World AIDS Day with candlelight vigils
The city commemorated the 33rd World AIDS Day with events across the five boroughs, including candlelight vigils in Brooklyn and on Staten Island. In Manhattan in the evening, the American Run for the End of AIDS and GMHC hosted a candlelight vigil at the AIDS Memorial in Greenwich Village.