에이즈(AIDS), 그 재현의 전쟁: 미국의 대중매체와 예술사진 그리고 행동주의 미술 (The War of Representation: AIDS in Media and Art)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 서양미술사학회
· 수록지 정보 : 서양미술사학회 논문집 / 28호 / 111 ~ 143페이지
· 저자명 : 김진아

초록

This paper is the first part of the project titled, The Relation between Mass Media and Art: Projecting Political Crisis at the End of the 20th Century. Since the end of the 1980s, the United States has experienced a number of significant political and social events such as the AIDS crisis, the Culture Wars, the Rodney King case and the Los Angeles Riots, 9/11, and the Iraq War. These events involve core issues such as illness, violence, national identity, the world order, power, and ethics. Art and media representation of such crisis situations, and its role in reconstructing historical and social effects, is much more powerful in this era than in any other previous time, since the mass media has become more and more important in producing views of reality and making an impact on our lives. In the realm of art, too, there has been an increasing tendency to use or to appropriate images from the mass media.
This paper examines: 1) how mass media, particularly magazines, presses, and TV, responded to AIDS in the first 7~8 years after AIDS was firstly diagnosed in 1981; 2) in 1987, why photographs of Nicholas Nixon and Rosalind Solomon were attacked by PWAs and 3) how AIDS activists, particularly ACT UP and Gran Fury, produced and used effective visual graphics against mainstream media images, often appropriating mass media’s graphic strategies.
In the earliest stage of the discovery of AIDS, the media rarely responded to the issue.
Then, AIDS suddenly became a much bigger story, when the major networks found the AIDS baby, a so-called “innocent victim” in journalism’s terms. “Innocent victims” were to be differentiated from the “victims” who were portrayed as deserving to get AIDS because of their homosexuality or IV addiction. Also, early broadcast/photojournalistic representation of AIDS victims often followed conventions that were commonly used with felons. Remarkable shifts in depictions of AIDS then took place when Rock Hudson admitted his diagnosis of AIDS in July 1985 and died that October. This event shocked American people. On the one hand, it alarmed the public about the need to take action to find a cure for AIDS. On the other hand, it horrified people by leading them to wonder, How can we know who are the people with AIDS? and to conclude, No one is safe from AIDS.
The pictures undercutting such dominant images in the mass media came mostly from the AIDS or gay community. However, these alternative representations often circulated only among individuals or within their own community. The first response to AIDS in art came from photography. Particularly, the photographs of AIDS sufferers by Nicholas Nixon and Rosalind Solomon attracted great attention from the art world and the AIDS community. These photographers approached PWAs with great sympathy and in a communicative mode, in contrast to the approach used by the mainstream media. AIDS activists, however, criticized Nixon’s portrayals of visibly ill people because AIDS victims were already depicted primarily as the “canonical AIDS victim” in media images.
As Douglas Crimp cried, “Stop looking at us; Start listening to us,” PWAs did not want to be viewed as patients or objects. Then at stake was the question of “representation,” “rules,” and “conventions” that give images status as dominant and true representations in society. To confront conventional images of PWAs and to attack government’s ignorance, ACT UP was created in 1987. ACT UP and its art collective Gran Fury made use of sophisticated graphics to create a public role for art, seeking to inform a broad public and provoke direct action to end the AIDS epidemic.
After the early 1990s, AIDS activism decreased, partly because the protease inhibitor was produced, and partly because many leading first-generation AIDS activists died. Gran Fury was also dismantled. This dissolution was significant because they had begun primarily not for the purpose of art, but in dedicating themselves to exploiting the power of art to end the AIDS crisis. Of course, the AIDS problem was not over; however, their efforts and that of others contributed to changing the wider public’s and government’s attitude towards gays and AIDS, and to forging their own community’s unity in the face of prejudice and death.

영어초록

This paper is the first part of the project titled, The Relation between Mass Media and Art: Projecting Political Crisis at the End of the 20th Century. Since the end of the 1980s, the United States has experienced a number of significant political and social events such as the AIDS crisis, the Culture Wars, the Rodney King case and the Los Angeles Riots, 9/11, and the Iraq War. These events involve core issues such as illness, violence, national identity, the world order, power, and ethics. Art and media representation of such crisis situations, and its role in reconstructing historical and social effects, is much more powerful in this era than in any other previous time, since the mass media has become more and more important in producing views of reality and making an impact on our lives. In the realm of art, too, there has been an increasing tendency to use or to appropriate images from the mass media.
This paper examines: 1) how mass media, particularly magazines, presses, and TV, responded to AIDS in the first 7~8 years after AIDS was firstly diagnosed in 1981; 2) in 1987, why photographs of Nicholas Nixon and Rosalind Solomon were attacked by PWAs and 3) how AIDS activists, particularly ACT UP and Gran Fury, produced and used effective visual graphics against mainstream media images, often appropriating mass media’s graphic strategies.
In the earliest stage of the discovery of AIDS, the media rarely responded to the issue.
Then, AIDS suddenly became a much bigger story, when the major networks found the AIDS baby, a so-called “innocent victim” in journalism’s terms. “Innocent victims” were to be differentiated from the “victims” who were portrayed as deserving to get AIDS because of their homosexuality or IV addiction. Also, early broadcast/photojournalistic representation of AIDS victims often followed conventions that were commonly used with felons. Remarkable shifts in depictions of AIDS then took place when Rock Hudson admitted his diagnosis of AIDS in July 1985 and died that October. This event shocked American people. On the one hand, it alarmed the public about the need to take action to find a cure for AIDS. On the other hand, it horrified people by leading them to wonder, How can we know who are the people with AIDS? and to conclude, No one is safe from AIDS.
The pictures undercutting such dominant images in the mass media came mostly from the AIDS or gay community. However, these alternative representations often circulated only among individuals or within their own community. The first response to AIDS in art came from photography. Particularly, the photographs of AIDS sufferers by Nicholas Nixon and Rosalind Solomon attracted great attention from the art world and the AIDS community. These photographers approached PWAs with great sympathy and in a communicative mode, in contrast to the approach used by the mainstream media. AIDS activists, however, criticized Nixon’s portrayals of visibly ill people because AIDS victims were already depicted primarily as the “canonical AIDS victim” in media images.
As Douglas Crimp cried, “Stop looking at us; Start listening to us,” PWAs did not want to be viewed as patients or objects. Then at stake was the question of “representation,” “rules,” and “conventions” that give images status as dominant and true representations in society. To confront conventional images of PWAs and to attack government’s ignorance, ACT UP was created in 1987. ACT UP and its art collective Gran Fury made use of sophisticated graphics to create a public role for art, seeking to inform a broad public and provoke direct action to end the AIDS epidemic.
After the early 1990s, AIDS activism decreased, partly because the protease inhibitor was produced, and partly because many leading first-generation AIDS activists died. Gran Fury was also dismantled. This dissolution was significant because they had begun primarily not for the purpose of art, but in dedicating themselves to exploiting the power of art to end the AIDS crisis. Of course, the AIDS problem was not over; however, their efforts and that of others contributed to changing the wider public’s and government’s attitude towards gays and AIDS, and to forging their own community’s unity in the face of prejudice and death.

참고자료

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