AEGiS-BKREV: Fluid Exchanges: Artists and Critics in the AIDS Crisis

Fluid Exchanges: Artists and Critics in the AIDS Crisis

University of Toronto Press, 10 St. Mary Street, Toronto, Ontario M4Y 2W8. 402p., illus., bibliog., index. ISBN 0-8020-5892-2, 0-8020-6824-3pbk. $50.00, $22.95pbk. (Contributors to this volume: Barry D. Adam, Univ. of Windsor; Bart Beaty, Carleton Univ.; Monique Brunet-Weinmann, Univ. de Montreal; Clarence Crossman, AIDS Committee of London; Monika Gagnon, writer and critic; John Gordon, activist; John Greyson, video/film artist; Jan Zita Grover, editor; Daniel Harris, writer; David Kinahan, Univ. of Western Ontario; Arthur Kroker, Concordia Univ, Montreal; James Miller, Univ. of Western Ontario; Jeff O'Malley, writer; Brian Patton, Univ. of Western Ontario; Dahlia Reich, reporter; Margaret A. Somerville, McGill Univ.; Simon Watney, National AIDS Manual; Thomas Waugh, Concordia Univ.; David White, Univ. of Western Ontario)
Edited by James Miller. 1992.

This is an excellent book that depicts the progress that art and illustration have made in the education of the public about AIDS. It also show the progress, although small, that has been made in providing a catalyst for the political aspects of AIDS. This book can make you feel that the progress that has been made may not be enough. "The diversity of arguments in it, enunciated from various national, political, and sexual standpoints, is meant to provoke constructive debate on the role of the arts in AIDS activism for the 1990s, even as it reflects the engagement of artists and critics with the ethics and politics of AIDS representation in the 1980s." Each section covers a particular aspect of art and illustration: photography, painting, film and video, memorials and public art, prevention campaigns, crisis and criticism, media and mediation, literature, legal and political discourse, and psychosexual discourse. Within these chapters such topics as images of the PWA in America; our lady of AIDS; the syndrome is the system; AIDS in the third world; criticism as activism; AIDS kills fags dead; and sacrificial sex are discussed.

This is a well-researched volume with many footnotes, bibliographies, and excellent illustrations. The text is easy to read and provides a great deal to think about. The reproductions of the illustrations are excellent as is the selection which cuts across all ethnic groups and includes both gay and heterosexual depictions. "Read as a kind of erotic invitation, the title of this volume calls into question the repressively puritanical message of such signs and the anti-symposiastic spirit behind them. Besides suggesting the etymological meaning of symposium, Fluid Exchanges is of course also a take on the official AIDSpeak phrase 'exchange of bodily fluids'--which has deviously translated sex into a kind of high-risk commerce, a commodity transaction."

This book should be in all academic and large public libraries. It has a message and should be read seriously. (H. Robert Malinowsky)

Keywords: Art and AIDS

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Copyright © 1994 - The University of Illinois at Chicago. All materials in the journal are subject to copyright by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois and may be reprinted or redistributed for the noncommercial purpose of scientific or educational advancement granted by Sections 107 and 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976. For other reprinting, redistribution, or translation, address requests to H. Robert Malinowsky, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, PO Box 8198, Chicago, IL 60680 or electronically to hrm@uic.edu.

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