What is 21st Century Liberation?

Designed by Avram Finkelstein, co-creator of SILENCE=DEATH, and Rodrigo Moreira. The installation is produced in conjunction with Visual AIDS’ 2019 Pride Broadsheet project and in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and NYC/World Pride. 
What Is 21st Century Liberation? highlights quotes from prominent queer activists and artists Bill T. Jones, Corey Johnson, Elle Woods, ALOK, Jason Collins, Chris Vargas, Lola Flash, Timothy Duwhite, Elizabeth Koke, Tenzin Gund-Morrow and Winter Collins sharing their insights and provocations around the idea of “liberation” in today’s cultural, social, and political context. The quotes are set against contact sheets by Eric Stephen Jacobs from the first “Pride,” Gay Liberation Day in 1970, reflecting on the past, present, and future of liberation. The project aims to address the complex intersectional issues that link AIDS activism with LGBTQI+ activism, and with expansive forms of social justice activism, both historically and today. Free broadsides will be available in Live Arts’ lobby for visitors to take away, and will be distributed in the thousands by Visual AIDS during the 2019 New York City Pride March for Stonewall 50.

The installation at Live Arts will be the central backdrop to the 2nd annual Live Arts Pride 2019: The House Party – 50 for 50; On Sunday, June 30, 2019, fifty artists of all kinds pay tribute to the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall uprising through dance parties, drag performances, DJ sets, visual and video art, an experiential installation, and more. Both legendary and young families from NYC’s queer nightlife and art scene Bubble_T, Papi Juice, RAGGA NYC, Switch n’ Play, and The Legendary House of Labeija honor the historical importance and unwavering power of collectives in LGBTQAI culture in a 6-hour building-wide multi-genre celebration for the ages.

About Avram Finkelstein

Avram Finkelstein is a founding member of the Silence=Death and Gran Fury collectives. He has work in the permanent collections of MoMA, The Whitney, The New Museum and The Brooklyn Museum. He is featured in the artist oral history project at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, and his book for UC Press, After Silence: A History of AIDS Through its Images was nominated for an ICP 2018 Infinity Award in Critical Writing And Research.  

About Rodrigo Moreira

Rodrigo Moreira is a Brazilian visual artist based in NYC working on. His practice includes engagement with queer and immigrant communities in order to collect personal stories. His work has been presented in New York at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, Bureau of General Services Queer Division and Nars Foundation, and has been featured in exhibitions in Brazil, Colombia, Spain and South Korea.  

About Visual AIDS
Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to HIV prevention and AIDS awareness through producing and presenting visual art projects while assisting artists living with HIV and AIDS, as well as preserving the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement. Visual AIDS was founded in 1988 to address the devastation of the ongoing AIDS crisis in the arts community while creating art activism initiatives such as Day With(out) Art and the Red Ribbon. For over thirty years, we have never stopped using art as a tool to educate and advocate in the fight against AIDS and for social justice.