dc.contributor.advisor |
Minissale, J |
en |
dc.contributor.author |
Craig, Julia |
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dc.date.accessioned |
2018-10-12T01:45:41Z |
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dc.date.issued |
2018 |
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dc.identifier.uri |
http://hdl.handle.net/2292/41185 |
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dc.description |
Available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland. |
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dc.description.abstract |
This thesis examines art that has been made in response to HIV and AIDS and the stereotypes and pathologising that harm the people living with them. The American mainstream media in the 1980s and 1990s portrayed people living with HIV/AIDS in reductive and negative ways, casting them as social pariahs and sexual deviants who contracted the virus through their own transgressive lifestyles. The imagery associated with this was presented as fixed realities and left no room for empathetic understandings of the complexities of living with HIV/AIDS. Such prejudices caused fear within gay communities, while governments used these communities as scapegoats for their inaction on controlling the virus and funding medical research. Amelia Jones has discussed how people continue to experience discrimination and violence due to this kind of imagery and urges a slower process of identifying to break out of harmful stereotyping. She has pointed to art-making as a tool for opening up binary understandings of others to a plethora of possible and ever-changing identifications and associations. Her theory is based on the school of thought that asserts that meaning is not inherent in an artwork, but is dependent on the viewer’s own memories, identities and desires. This notion is called duration, and in the context of art about HIV/AIDS, duration is rendered queer, as artworks can slow and bend time, allowing for an affecting experience in the viewer. Durational art encourages a flow of different memories and sensations rather than one singular experience that has been perpetuated by the popular media. This thesis will consider four artists who have invited queer duration in their art about HIV/AIDS: Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Ron Athey, Lyle Ashton Harris, and Kiki Smith. Through a number of different approaches, media, and thematic sensibilities, these artists hinder instant binary readings and instead draw out identifications and facilitate a slow unfolding of associations. They allow their audiences to project their own identities, memories, and desires into their art, which encourages empathy with people living with HIV/AIDS. Gonzalez-Torres does this through his intimate photograph of his unmade and empty bed posted around New York City. His subtle introduction of the HIV subject into art institutions and public spaces allows for a relationary experience that implicates all of society. Ron Athey takes this technique further with his extreme performances, using his own body to push his audience's 4 comfort zones and assert his vitality and identity in the wake of HIV. Lyle Ashton Harris uses photography and his personal archive to place HIV between the public and private. This tension between the two spheres breaks HIV out of a fixed narrative and allows it to exist in more than one space. Kiki Smith uses the materiality of her works to draw her audiences to their own bodily relationship to both the artwork and other bodies in space. This embodied experience again facilitates the visitor’s personal relationship to HIV, by bringing their own memories and identifications to the HIV subject. By exploring the queer durational effects of these different artworks, this thesis will demonstrate how art can facilitate empathy and awareness and reassert the vitality and agency of people living with HIV/AIDS. |
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dc.publisher |
ResearchSpace@Auckland |
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dc.relation.ispartof |
Masters Thesis - University of Auckland |
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dc.relation.isreferencedby |
UoA99265116113102091 |
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dc.rights |
Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. |
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dc.rights |
Restricted Item. Available to authenticated members of The University of Auckland. |
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dc.rights.uri |
https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm |
en |
dc.rights.uri |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/nz/ |
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dc.title |
Fluid Practice: Queer duration in art about HIV/AIDS |
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dc.type |
Thesis |
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thesis.degree.discipline |
Art History |
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thesis.degree.grantor |
The University of Auckland |
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thesis.degree.level |
Masters |
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dc.rights.holder |
Copyright: The author |
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pubs.elements-id |
754707 |
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pubs.org-id |
University management |
en |
pubs.org-id |
Office of the Vice-Chancellor |
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pubs.org-id |
Gus Fisher Gallery |
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pubs.record-created-at-source-date |
2018-10-12 |
en |
dc.identifier.wikidata |
Q112936048 |
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