Visual AIDS fosters a culture that understands HIV as part of human experience, because we all live in a world shaped by HIV & AIDS.

At Visual AIDS we know that the ongoing AIDS crisis, and the artistic and activist response to it, has much to teach us all as we face new and ongoing crises. In this moment of local, national, and global precarity, we focus on our roots: to preserve, to repair, and to continue for the generations before us and those yet to come.

Through decades of community work, global programs, direct support for artists living with HIV, and stewardship of artists who have died from AIDS related complications, we remain more committed than ever.

In this uncertain and frightening moment – amid funding cuts and rising AIDS denialism – we need your support to show that we aren't going anywhere.

Since 1994, the Visual AIDS Archive has worked to preserve and steward the work and legacies of artists living with HIV and those lost to AIDS. We build and care for an extensive and growing archive of materials pertaining to artists with HIV, materials that are not collected anywhere else.

In an era of erasure, we are pushing back by:

◾ Hiring an Archive Fellow to produce a research guide for Black artists in our collection as part of the Getty Foundation's Black Visual Art Archives initiative

◾ The digitization of hundreds of interviews with LGBT artists in the 1990s by archive co-founder David Hirsh

◾The Ross Laycock Initiative for the Exploration of Science, Art, AIDS: a special web gallery in honor of Ross Laycock (1959–1991), biochemist, poet, activist, muse, and partner of Felix Gonzalez-Torres.

◾Our ongoing Research Fellowship and Symposium to highlight underknown artists lost to AIDS in our holdings.

◾The acquisition of new archival collections, the first in our archive's history, including materials from Joseph Modica (whose photograph Ethel, Keith, Cookie & John appears above), Timothy Greathouse, Philip Yenawine, and David Nelson & David Knudsvig.

We see artists as whole people. We care for Artist Members by offering ongoing support, without gatekeeping who gets to be an artist.

We have worked for decades to repair the gaps in the cultural record created by the stigma of AIDS and other intersecting social biases, like race, class, gender, sexuality, and geographic location. We push against narrow definitions of value and uplift those historically excluded from being seen as "real" artists.

Our recent exhibition Ministry: Reverend Joyce McDonald marks the first solo exhibition of a Visual AIDS Artist Member at a major institution, celebrating the incredible sculptural world of long-time member Reverend Joyce McDonald.

We continue to elevate voices often left out of the story through projects like Love Rules: The Harm Reduction Archives of Heather Edney and Richard Berkowitz at MoMA PS1, which highlights two harm reduction pioneers who shaped public health practices.

We work to elevate stories and voices of artists impacted by HIV and AIDS too often left out of the conversation. Histories like the origins of hard reduction and safe sex practices that were created by sex workers and drug users shaped public policy through art and community (Love Rules: The Harm Reduction Archives of Heather Edney and Richard Berkowitz recently at MoMA PS1). We champion artists from the global south and other parts of the world that are just developing their artistic canon around HIV alongside long-time survivors across New York City and the United States.

Our work is for everyone, so we make sure it includes everyone.

Over the past year, we have seen awareness around HIV/AIDS erode with alarming momentum. International funding has been cut for PEPFAR and USAID, leaving millions around the world without access to lifesaving medication and healthcare. Within the United States, HIV prevention, surveillance, and research programs have been gutted and dismantled. These cuts have immediate effects—treatment interrupted, studies cancelled, people left to die—but their full impact is harder to see and will unfold in slow motion over the next decade. It is up to artists and activists to make this visible.

We are committed to continuing our work.

We continue to provide unrestricted artist support grants to artists living with HIV throughout the world to help keep practices alive and basic needs covered.

To mark World AIDS Day 2025, we will premiere Meet Us Where We’re At as part of Day With(out) Art, a program of six videos that forefront the experiences of drug users and harm reduction practices as they intersect with the ongoing HIV crisis. These films will be screened across the world at over 130 partner organizations in over 12 languages. Highlighting undertold stories around HIV/AIDS is more crucial than ever.

Our 2026 focus will be on the global south and the impacts of colonization and colonialism on people living with HIV, as well as the wider impact of HIV/AIDS funding for those living outside of the United States.

Artists and activists have shown us the way through crises before, and it is our mission to ensure their voices can continue to guide us now. Help us keep this work going––give today.

Images: banner: Joyce McDonald, Priceless Parent Protection, 2020, courtesy of the artist, Gordon Robichaux, New York, and Maureen Paley, London, photo: Ryan Page; We Preserve: Joseph Modica, Ethel, Keith, Cookie & John; We Repair: installation shot of Ministry: Rev. Joyce McDonald, photo by Argenis Apolinario, 2025; We Continue: still from José Luis Cortés Day(With)Out Art 2025 film, ¿Por qué tanto dolor? (Why so much pain?)

Support the work of Visual AIDS

By Visual AIDS

Support the work of Visual AIDS

Team Members