What did Gran fury stand for?
Gran Fury formed in the end of the 1980s, it was an activist art collective that formed as an offshoot of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). They weren’t only for homosexual rights, but it was also one of their primary objectives. Their first priority was to educate the public audience by provoking actions of the government and the negligence of the citizens towards the AIDS pandemic.
Forming graphic campaigns, using commercial advertisement, they targeted the streets and not galleries of museums. They wanted their artworks to be exposed to everyone, people with all kinds of status.
They are most famous for their image of three interracial couples (straight, gay and lesbian) kissing above the caption “Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed and Indifference Do,”
<<The graphic SILENCE = DEATH shown was created as a reaction to a 1986 New York Times editorial by William F. Buckley, who spread his opinion that all persons with AIDS: “Should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to protect the victimization of other homosexuals.”
Gran Fury’s responded by installing a window in a storefront on lower Broadway in Soho, consisting of a neon version the SILENCE = DEATH graphic and photos of some of the persons and entities responsible for aggravating the AIDS crisis which included Buckley himself. The neon piece became part of the New Museum’s permanent collection, and the SILENCE = DEATH graphic was widely disseminated through t-shirts, wheatpastes, and other printed items.>>
Forming graphic campaigns, using commercial advertisement, they targeted the streets and not galleries of museums. They wanted their artworks to be exposed to everyone, people with all kinds of status.
They are most famous for their image of three interracial couples (straight, gay and lesbian) kissing above the caption “Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed and Indifference Do,”
<<The graphic SILENCE = DEATH shown was created as a reaction to a 1986 New York Times editorial by William F. Buckley, who spread his opinion that all persons with AIDS: “Should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to protect the victimization of other homosexuals.”
Gran Fury’s responded by installing a window in a storefront on lower Broadway in Soho, consisting of a neon version the SILENCE = DEATH graphic and photos of some of the persons and entities responsible for aggravating the AIDS crisis which included Buckley himself. The neon piece became part of the New Museum’s permanent collection, and the SILENCE = DEATH graphic was widely disseminated through t-shirts, wheatpastes, and other printed items.>>
My opinion
AIDS is a big part of my exposition because of how big of a difficulty it was for homosexuals. Gran fury’s main target were the public in the street, they wanted people to take action and the government to pay more attention. There was a lot of stigma towards homosexuals at that time because people were blaming it on them for this new disease. Like the poster says “Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed and Indifference Do”, it means that no matter how much people complain about something they saw as a threat it wouldn’t change the fact that more and more people died.