The story of art collective Gran Fury--which fought back during
the AIDS crisis through direct action and community-made
propaganda--offers lessons in love and grief.
In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer
people, intravenous drug users, and communities of color in America,
and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out of the activist
group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an art collective
that called itself Gran Fury formed to campaign against corporate
greed, government inaction, stigma, and public indifference to the
epidemic.
Writer Jack Lowery examines Gran Fury's art and activism from
iconic images like the "Kissing Doesn't Kill" poster to the
act of dropping piles of fake bills onto the trading floor of the New
York Stock Exchange. Lowery offers a complex, moving portrait of a
collective and its members, who built essential solidarities with
each other and whose lives evidenced the profound trauma of enduring
the AIDS crisis.
Gran Fury and ACT UP's strategies are still used frequently by the
activists leading contemporary movements. In an era when structural
violence and the devastation of COVID-19 continue to target the most
vulnerable, this belief in the power of public art and action
persists.