The AIDS Crisis is Ridiculous and Other Writings, 1986-2003

by Gregg Bordowitz, James Meyer (Editor), Douglas Crimp (Foreword by)

The first collection of writings by a noted artist and activist whose work has focused on the AIDS epidemic. The HIV epidemic animates this collection of essays by a noted artist, writer, and activist. "So total was the burden of illness—mine and others'—that the only viable response, other than to cease making art entirely, was to adjust to the gravity of the predicament by using the crisis as a lens," writes Gregg Bordowitz, a film- and video-maker whose best-known works, Fast Trip Long Drop (1993) and Habit (2001), address AIDS globally and personally. In The AIDS Crisis Is Ridiculous— the title essay is inspired by Charles Ludlam, founder of the Ridiculous Theater Company—Bordowitz follows in the tradition of artist-writers Robert Smithson and Yvonne Rainer by making writing an integral part of an artistic practice. Bordowitz has left his earliest writings for the most part unchanged—to preserve, he says, "both the youthful exuberance and the palpable sense of fear" created by the early days of the AIDS crisis. After these early essays, the writing becomes more experimental, sometimes mixing fiction and fact; included here is a selection of Bordowitz's columns from the journal Documents, "New York Was Yesterday." Finally, in his newest essays he reformulates early themes, and, in "My Postmodernism" (written for Artforum's fortieth anniversary issue) and "More Operative Assumptions" (written especially for this book), he reexamines the underlying ideas of his practice and sums up his theoretical concerns. In his mature work, Bordowitz seeks to join the subjective—the experience of having a disease—and the objective—the fact of the disease as a global problem. He believes that this conjunction is necessary for understanding and fighting the crisis. "If it can be written," he says, "then it can be realized."

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, LGBT

339 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Bordowitz began his academic career at the School of Visual Arts, then studied at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program from 1985 to 1986, and at New York University from 1986 to 1987. In 1987, Bordowitz dropped out of school to become a full-time video artist, guerilla TV director and activist with the direct action advocacy group ACT UP.[1] During this time, Bordowitz was central to the formation of the notable video activist collective, Testing the Limits, who produced work documenting AIDS activism that were distributed through television, museums, schools and community centers. He also wrote prolifically on the topic of AIDS activism, contributing heavily to the 1987 "AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism" of the well-respected academic journal October. In 1988, Gregg Bordowitz tested positive for HIV and, as a result, came out as a homosexual man to his mother and stepfather. He left Testing the Limits (now a self-sufficient non-profit entity) to focus on a more 'guerilla' approach to documenting AIDS activism.

In 1988, he met video artist Jean Carlomusto at a demonstration partnered with her to produce the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) cable TV show Living With AIDS, which ran regularly until 1994.[2] In 1989, he, along with numerous other video activists, formed DIVA (Damned Interfering Video Activists), a parter organization to ACT UP, dedicated to accurately documenting the protests organized by ACT UP and providing an alternative representation of the AIDS activist movement than the one presented by the mainstream media.

In 1993, filled with despair at the decline of AIDS activism as well as his own diminishing chances of survival, Bordowitz produces one of his most famous pieces, the documentary/montage Fast Trip, Long Drop. In this video, Bordowitz addresses the public's reaction to and representation of the AIDS epidemic as well as his own fears, insecurities and struggles related to the disease. Fast Trip, Long Drop provides a pessimistic counterpoint to the flood of representations of people "Surviving and Thriving" with AIDS through a collage of documentary footage, staged parody and vintage film clips. For the first time in an AIDS related documentary, people with AIDS were shown addressing and coming to terms with the ever-present fact of their own mortality. As Bordowitz explains in his 1999 interview with the AIDS art forum Artery, "When I made "Fast Trip, Long Drop" I was tired of pretending for the sake of others that I would survive. I became preoccupied with the burdens that sick people bear on behalf of those around them who are well. I wanted to get a handle on despair and put it out there as a political problem. To be recognized and discussed. If we couldn't do this, then it all seemed like bullshit. I wanted an honest media produced in the interests of people living with AIDS." [3] The film, along with many of his other works, has been shown in film festivals, museums and on television ever since with extremely positive response.

From there, Bordowitz continued to address AIDS in his artwork, video work and writing. He taught video art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Brown University, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1995 to 2010, before being hired as a permanent professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His works have been shown at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as numerous film festivals.

In 2009, Gregg Bordowitz began collaboration with artist Paul Chan an opera adaptation of Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality. Though they envisioned the project as an impossible to complete, they were approached by Viennese museum curator Achim Hochdörfer, and asked to stage a performance at the MUMOK. In 2010, they staged a 6-man performance written and directed by Bordowitz

Reviews

[Ai Miller]

This is a really fascinating trip through Bordowitz's work; he's such a deep thinker about art and AIDS, and it really shows. I enjoyed the later essays more, as I think you see him settle into his frameworks in a really interesting way, but the earlier ones are still fascinating. I will note that I don't read a lot of stuff about art more broadly, but I still definitely found this book interesting and also useful as you watch Bordowitz's journey from someone sure he's going to die in a very short period to someone who had to think about living in the long term. Favorites include "Boat Trip" and "Dense Moments" as well as "My Postmodernism."

[simon]

i learned a lot from this book, but didn't finish it. bordowitz teaches at art institute here in chicago, and some friends of mine have relp's with him through it. but more importantly, i think he was spree's x boyfriend, which is way better for the gossip columns.

but about the book. i learned about the video activism part of the AIDS direct-action efforts in the early 90's which i didn't know much about. what i really liked was bordowitz's insistence that women/dykes were intrinsic to this art/activism, which i think is way-too-often missing from the history books.

[Janelle]

Really great personal history of the AIDS crisis and its activisms, and how it relates to some of the intellectual concerns of Bordowitz's artistic practice. Very engaging, especially as you see how Bordowitz's ideas about AIDS and art have changed over the years. Really important for those interested in learning about AIDS in North America in the 80s and 90s and what that context means now.

[Emily Watlington]

I picked this book up because it was $2 at the MIT Press misprint sale, and I'm quite glad I did. It's a great combination of scholarly essays, memoirs, etc. regarding art and the AIDS crisis, making an easy yet heavy read. Each piece is very different than the one that precedes it, yet the subject is consistent. Definitely something for everyone.

[Mills College Library]

362.19697 B729 2004