How to Live with a Virus

As the news broke that a new coronavirus was beginning to spread in the United States, I received the following Instagram direct message: "What? No AIDS memes?"

Lana Del AIDS, courtesy of Theodore Kerr.

The message came from a friend who knew that over the last decade, I've been creating art that uses contemporary news and culture to push back against the relative silence around HIV. For example, a few years ago I made a postcard that read, "LANA DEL AIDS." My hope was that by inserting the idea of HIV into a pop icon, people would be reminded that AIDS is not just a part of our past but also part of our present. With this in mind, my friend reasonably figured that in the face of an emerging and mysterious virus that was stigmatizing specific populations thought to be the cause of the outbreak, I might have a few clever visual op-eds up my sleeve.

But I didn't. In fact, when I received his message, I was more interested in dissuading people from associating AIDS and COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. I felt like focusing on HIV was not the most fruitful way forward.

I'd spent the prior week at the SPRING/BREAK Art Show in New York City as the curator of VINCI, a multiwork installation by the artist Jordan Eagles, who is known for using blood and resin in his art. The exhibit included a wall-sized projection of Salvator Mundi—a painting of Jesus portrayed as "Savior of the World" attributed to Leonardo da Vinci that in 2017 was sold for almost half a billion dollars. Eagles rendered the image using the blood of an activist who is living long term with HIV and has an undetectable viral load.

Amid the red glow of Eagles's installation, the art show attendees began to process the news reports of the growing number of COVID-19 cases in the States. Some shared how the inept governmental response, the growing collective fears and the unanswered questions about risk were reminding them of HIV before it had a name, a test or treatment. Most of the people sharing these thoughts were cis gay men and lifelong New Yorkers. For them, the parallels between the early days of AIDS and COVID-19 were unmistakable, and often painfully similar. There was a trauma in their recollection, a visceral understanding of how bad something could be. I wasn't sure yet how I felt about what they were saying, but I knew enough to listen.

On the second night of the art fair, I met friends for dinner in Chinatown. It was a deliberate and humble act to counter the hatred and violence being directed at people from China and across Asia who were being verbally and physically abused and being positioned as vectors of the new pandemic. As a result, Chinese and Asian businesses were suffering. Knowing our dinner plans, another friend joked earlier that we must be members of the Princess Diana posse, referring to how she toured the London AIDS wards in the early days of the epidemic to combat stigma. Later that night, I thought about how meaningful those images of Princess Diana were to people at the time and how they are still meaningful today. The sparkle of the crown communicated to the public how simple gestures of solidarity can assert an ethos of humanity.

I'm not sure what our presence meant to the restaurant staff and owners in Chinatown that night. But a week later, it became a stark reminder of how in the early days of this new pandemic, it was still possible to show solidarity by coming together, rather than staying far apart.

Over the next few days, Eagles's installation continued to inspire COVID-19 conversations as the news unfolded hourly. The comparison to HIV was made again and again, yet I still wasn't sold on the idea. Although Trump and his administration bungled our national response at every turn, choosing capitalism [End Page 110...