Institute of Cultural Inquiry

"Knowing full well that postmodern architecture is loaded with historical gimmicks, sly references, visual puns, I will nevertheless contend that I am the brunt of one of its recent jokes."

LIBRARY SHELF: On the Museum’s Ruins institute | First and Last Lines, Library

A predecessor to the Instagram post, this 1996 xerox captures a group of ICI volunteers after the 1996 Day Without Art.
Part of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry’s AIDS Ephemera Collection.

AIDS trading cards released in 1993 by Eclipse Enterprises, distributors of comics and graphic novels.
Part of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry’s AIDS Ephemera Collection.

Original ref ribbon design with an easily recognizable inverted ‘V’ at the top - a visual echo of ACT UP’s reappropriation of the N**i pink triangle used to identify ‘homosexuals’. By the time it was worn by celebrities the sharp edges of the red ribbon had been rounded out.
Part of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry’s AIDS Ephemera Collection

Diamada Galas’s enduring, rage-filled ‘corrective’ to the red ribbon.
Part of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry’s AIDS Ephemera Collection.

New York Times article in 2017 Sunday magazine by Linda Villarosa. Startling statistics about the lack of support of and care for HIV+ black gay and bisexual men in America’s south reminds us that the AIDS crime is not over.
Part of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry’s AIDS Ephemera Collection.

Marvel Comics first openly gay hero. Northstar comes out in a March 1992 issue of Alpha Flight after his adopted daughter dies of AIDS
Part of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry’s Ephemera Collection.

Broadside by John Giorno created for VisualAIDS and Day without Art in 1993.
Part of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry’s AIDS Ephemera Collection.

Obituary of Ricardia Palmer-Michel who died of AIDS in 1995. She was 5 years old.
Part of the Institute of Cultural Inquiry’s AIDS Ephemera Collection.