Hunter Reynolds: Art as Survival in the Age of AIDS
HUFFINGTON POST
By G. Roger Denson
NEW YORK - The myth of the modern medical cure both inspires and deludes us. It's within this overlapping zone of hope and uncertainty that arose with AIDS that I see the art of Hunter Reynolds fulfilling a unique need. His art has been conceived entirely in response to the shocking mortality, disillusionment and prejudice that came flooding in on the AIDS generation. New York city residents and visitors can see the exhibition "Hunter Reynolds: Survival AIDS," a new series of works that incorporates elements spanning 25 years of image making, and constructed around Reynolds' experience as a gay man living in the age of AIDS. Survival AIDS will combine three modalities that he has used in various ways in his work over the years: the Blood Spot series (above), Mummification Performance Skins (below), and Photo Weavings. At Participant Inc., 253 East Houston, NYC, May 1 - June 5, 2011.
A Franciscan friar I know some years back impressed upon me his belief that spirituality is no more nor less than learning to let go. This lesson is most poignantly embodied in the Mourning Flowers and Cloud Photo-Weavings and, of course, the Memorial Dress, in which the many men and women who died of AIDS are commemorated. It was Hunter Reynolds, not the now deceased Patina du Prey, who enacted the mummification performances between 1999 and 2005. Potentially dangerous for an individual with a low T-cell count, the performances offered audiences both in galleries and on the street a compelling visual ritual of suspense as the artist was wrapped alive and standing vertically with cellophane and tape by assistants, then set to rest for near-unendurable durations horizontally on the floor. [link]
By G. Roger Denson
A Franciscan friar I know some years back impressed upon me his belief that spirituality is no more nor less than learning to let go. This lesson is most poignantly embodied in the Mourning Flowers and Cloud Photo-Weavings and, of course, the Memorial Dress, in which the many men and women who died of AIDS are commemorated. It was Hunter Reynolds, not the now deceased Patina du Prey, who enacted the mummification performances between 1999 and 2005. Potentially dangerous for an individual with a low T-cell count, the performances offered audiences both in galleries and on the street a compelling visual ritual of suspense as the artist was wrapped alive and standing vertically with cellophane and tape by assistants, then set to rest for near-unendurable durations horizontally on the floor. [link]
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