The headline reads, “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals: Outbreak Occurs Among Men in New York and California.” This July will mark 39 years since the now-infamous Jheadline from The New York Times appeared, which for many signaled the arrival of HIV/AIDS in their lives.
By looking back, we can often see a template for how the story unfolds by seeing how it began.
politicians were selling stocks in early February, hoping to avoid market drops due to the pandemic.Īs someone who has been writing, organizing, and educating about the AIDS epidemic for the past 20 years, with a specific focus on the virus before 1981, I have come to see the importance of a crisis’ early history. Before the virus even had a name, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency, which the Trump administration largely ignored, with the exception of restricting some travel from China. The latest research indicates that COVID-19 was circulating in counties near Seattle as early as late December, and a woman in San Jose died with the virus on February 6. After the transition, Geiss will remain chairman of the development committee on the board.Of course, the story of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. Gay replaces Suzanne Geiss, who will serve as Vice President. Schlenzka said she ultimately wanted at least 50 percent of the board of Performance Space New York to be artists. Nicole Eisenman, Jonathan González and Jackson Polys were among the artists who joined the board in 2020. Performance Space New York has also pushed itself to include more artists on its board. In 2020, Performance Space New York gave the keys to a group of artists who gave them complete control over funding and programming. While appointing Gay to a senior post in most art spaces would be unconventional, it’s not an entirely uncommon move for Performance Space, which has always involved artists behind the scenes to reconfigure the look of an art organization. And adds, “Her opinions are realistic and solid: she wants a more equitable and accessible culture and sees how we can be part of creating that culture.” Jenny Schlenzka, Executive Artistic Director of Performance Space New York, called Gay “someone who would rather change something than talk endlessly about changes”. Gay also said she was committed to diversifying Performance Space’s supporters and making sure we continue to ensure that it’s not just people with money sitting on the board making decisions – because that doesn’t reflect our actual community.
In a statement, Gay said that as chairman of the board, she “wants to continue to support great experimental art” to ensure that “a variety of aesthetics are brought into the performance space”. She was first connected to the organization through her wife, Debbie Millman, who is also a board member. Gay has also been involved with Performance Space for some time and has been on the board there for a year and a half. “And now it’s out of control.” For Art in America, Gay also spoke to painter Jenny Saville about obesity and feminism. “I started researching and purchasing pieces,” she said. In an Artnet News interview last April, she announced that she has works by Mickalene Thomas, Jenny Holzer, Julie Mehretu, Kahlil Robert Irving and others in her portfolio. Her 2014 collection of Bad Feminist essays made it onto the New York Times bestseller list and her 2017 book Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body received widespread acclaim.Īlthough gay is not widely associated with the art world, she has recently picked up as a collector. Gay is an outspoken commentator on issues of identity and privilege.
But Performance Space New York, a popular alternative location in the East Village, took a different turn when it named best-selling author Roxane Gay as its chairman on Thursday. The chief executives of art institutions are usually die-hard collectors and well-known philanthropists.