Origins

Day Without Art began on December 1, 1989 as the national day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis. To make the public aware that AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 can touch everyone, and inspire positive action, some 800 U.S. art and AIDS groups participated in the first Day Without Art, shutting down museums, sending staff to volunteer at AIDS services, or sponsoring special exhibitions of work about AIDS. Since then, Day With(out) Art has grown into a collaborative project in which an estimated 8,000 national and international museums, galleries, art centers, AIDS service organization

AIDS service organization

AIDS service organizations are community based organizations that provide community support. While their primary function is to provide needed services to individuals with HIV, they also provide support services for their families and friends as well as conduct prevention efforts...

s, libraries, high schools and colleges take part.

In the past, "Visual AIDS" initiated public actions and programs, published an annual poster and copyright-free

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

 broadsides

Broadside (printing)

A broadside is a large sheet of paper printed on one side only. Historically, broadsides were posters, announcing events or proclamations, or simply advertisements...

, and acted as press coordinator and clearing house for projects for Day Without Art/World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day, observed December 1 every year, is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. Government and health officials observe the day, often with speeches or forums on the AIDS topics. Since 1995, the President of the United States has made an...

. In 1997, it was suggested Day Without Art become a Day With Art, to recognize and promote increased programming of cultural events that draw attention to the continuing pandemic

Pandemic

A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...

. Though "the name was retained as a metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

 for the chilling possibility of a future day without art or artists", we added parentheses to the program title, Day With(out) Art, to highlight the proactive programming of art projects by artists living with HIV/AIDS, and art about AIDS, that were taking place around the world. It had become clear that active interventions within the annual program were far more effective than actions to negate or reduce the programs of cultural centers.

Red ribbon

In the spring of 1985, Thomas Sokolowski, then head of New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

’s Grey Art Gallery, was showing the work of a promising 29-year-old artist. A few months later, a mutual friend called to tell him the artist had died. “I asked, ‘of what?’” Sokolowski recounts. “Of AIDS”, his friend said. “While I was not unaware of the pandemic,” Sokolowski says, “it still was not the first thing you thought of at that time.”

By 1985, 12,000 Americans were known to have AIDS and 7,000 died from it that year.

"I remember it just sort of started from there", Sokolowski says. “There started to be articles in the paper about AIDS. I was living in the Village and, being a gay person and being involved in the art world, I’d read about this dancer or that singer dying of AIDS. And then, in 1989 and 1990, two of my dear friends died.”

Because gay men were the most affected by the disease and the arts communities of California and New York had many gay members, the art world was reeling from the loss of so many of its own.

One night, at Sokolowski’s Manhattan apartment, a group of arts-community friends sat around a table for dinner and asked ‘what can we do?’ to bring AIDS into the general public’s consciousness. “We felt strongly that we had clout in the art world,” Sokolowski recalls.

The result of that dinner — and the monthly meetings that followed for years — was the 1989 formation of Visual AIDS, a group dedicated to using the arts to bring public attention to the AIDS crisis. The group would go on to found “Day Without Art.” And it would create perhaps the most universally recognizable symbol — the red ribbon — which stood for the clarity, unity, compassion, and determination that soon took over the fight against AIDS.

Visual AIDS's first nationwide effort was a December 1 “Day Without Art”, when some of the nation's museums shut their doors — symbolizing what would happen if AIDS wiped out the arts community — while others remained open but addressed the AIDS issue in other ways. The event, which would eventually foster World AIDS Day, received national media coverage, including calls to Sokolowski from network anchors Peter Jennings

Peter Jennings

Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM was a Canadian American journalist and news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer...

 and Dan Rather

Dan Rather

Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...

. The next year, Visual AIDS came up with the idea of a “Night Without Light,” when 27 of New York City's major skyscrapers, bridges, and many of the theater district's marquees went dark.

But the culmination of Visual AIDS's efforts was the creation of the little red ribbon

Red ribbon

The red ribbon, as an awareness ribbon colored red, has several different meanings in different contexts. Foremost, it is the symbol of solidarity of people living with HIV/AIDS.-Awareness symbol:...

 on a gold safety pin. Sokolowski and his group managed to get presenters and awardees at the 1991 Tony Awards ceremony to wear them on national television throughout the evening. The ribbons quickly became a global symbol of the commitment to fight AIDS.

New Zealand

The inaugural Day without Art exhibition held in New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 opened on 1 December, 1995, at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery

Southland museum and art gallery

The Southland Museum and Art Gallery is located in Gala Street, Invercargill, New Zealand. It is Southland's largest cultural and heritage institution, and contains a wide variety of the region's art, history and natural history collections.-Observatory:...

. Curated by Wayne P. Marriott, the installation was undertaken by Daniel McKnight, Vicky Byrne and Marriott. In 1996 the Southland Museum and Art Gallery was awarded a New Zealand AIDS Foundation media award for its work in promoting a better understanding of the impact of HIV/AIDS on the wider community. The museum continued to annually host a Day without Art exhibition until 1999.

External links

http://www.thebody.com/visualaids/dwa/dwa2006.html

http://www.visualaids.org/

http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmag/bk_issue/2005/winter/feature3.html