Visual AIDS presents VAVA VOOM, a night of art, performance, activism and celebration, honoring this year’s recipients of the 12th annual Visual AIDS Vanguard Awards (VAVA) – including renowned artists and activists, Zoe Leonard, Eric Rhein, and Sur Rodney (Sur). The awards will be presented by Douglas Crimp, Barbara Hunt McLanahan and Lorraine O’Grady.  Visual AIDS will also recognize artist and former Board President Brice Brown for his inspiring support of Visual AIDS. The evening includes performances by legendary and cutting edge artists, Kembra Pfahler and The Girls of Karen Black and Narcissister, along with RuPaul Drag Race season 9 star Sasha Velour. The master of ceremonies will be comedic performer Morgan Bassichis, and artist Ryan McNamara will DJ. VAVA VOOM will include an art auction with work by Glenn Ligon, Carrie Moyer, Richard Renaldi, Louise Fishman, Betty Tompkins, Zachari Logan, and more with bidding beginning online at Artsy.com on May 10.  Proceeds from the event support the mission of Visual AIDS.
 
The Visual AIDS Vanguard Awards recognize the achievements and contributions of individuals who, through their work, talent and dedication, strengthen the cultural history of art, AIDS and activism in our communities.  This year’s honorees each have a long history in art and AIDS activism in New York City.

This event brings together artists, arts patrons, AIDS advocates, and the LGBT community, who have supported Visual AIDS’ commitment to HIV prevention and AIDS awareness. Visual AIDS utilizes art to provoke dialogue about HIV, supports HIV+ artists, and preserves a legacy because AIDS is not over. 

WEBSITE: https://www.visualaids.org/events/detail/vava-voom-2017
TICKETS: $350-$500

Clockwise from top left: Sur Rodney (Sur), Eric Rhein, Zoe Leonard, Brice Brown

HONOREE BIOS:
Zoe Leonard, an artist primarily known for her photography, sculpture, and site-specific installations, is also an influential feminist and queer activist who started working in New York City in the 1980s, an era marked by overwhelming loss during the AIDS epidemic. Throughout her work from that time, Leonard references the enormous loss of close friends and fellow artists and activists whose absence still reverberates today. She is a founding member of fierce pussy, a collective of queer women artists. Leonard is also the author of the well known text, I want a president. Written in 1992, this work circulated widely during the 2016 presidential campaign and in the months since the election it has become something of an anthem for resistance and change.
 
Sur Rodney (Sur) is an archivist, writer and curator best known for his position as co-director of the Gracie Mansion Gallery from 1983-88. The gallery was central to establishing Lower Manhattan’s East Village scene as an internationally recognized viable art district actively historicized for cultivating a host of young and emerging artists to international acclaim. His work with artists’ estates, at cause to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, led him to help establish Visual AIDS’ Frank Moore Archive Project while serving as a member of the organization’s board for more than a decade. Along with his longtime partner Geoffrey Hendricks (a queer artist associated with FLUXUS) he collaborated on a series of curatorial projects and exhibitions relating to art and AIDS.
 
Each year a special VAVA is presented to an individual in the creative arts living with HIV, and is named in honor of William Olander, the late New Museum curator and co-founder of Visual AIDS–this year, that award goes to Eric Rhein.  Rhein’s work chronicles his life experience and travels, both geographic and mystic; his childhood in the Appalachian Mountains and New York’s Hudson Valley, and his nearly three decades living with HIV. After his diagnosis in 1987, Rhein began exploring themes of vulnerability, resilience and transcendence. In 1996, the year protease inhibitors restored Rhein’s physical vitality, he began his ongoing series, Leaves, which honors the lives of over 250 men and women he knew who died of complications from AIDS.
 
Brice Brown served on Visual AIDS Board of Directors from 2008-2015, and as Board President from 2011-2015, helping guide the organization and supporting its mission to utilize art to fight AIDS. A prolific artist, Brown’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and reviewed in The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, Artnews, The Village Voice, and on NPR.

Clockwise from top left: Kembra Pfahler & The Girls of Karen Black, Sasha Velour, Narcissister and Morgan Bassichis

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS:
This year’s entertainment features legendary NYC performers and rising stars, including Kembra Pfahler who is best known as the lead singer of the cult glam-punk band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black; Brooklyn’s own, Sasha Velour who is currently appearing on the Emmy-winning reality TV competition, Rupaul’s Drag Race (Season 9); and Narcissister, nominated for a 2013 Bessie Award, works at the intersection of performance, dance, art, and activism–often wearing a mask and merkin. VAVA VOOM is being hosted by writer and comedic performer Morgan Bassichis, with DJ sets by artist Ryan McNamara, who recently rediscovered his deep love and respect for gay bars.
 
ABOUT VISUAL AIDS:
Visual AIDS utilizes art to provoke dialogue about HIV, supports HIV+ artists, and preserves a legacy because AIDS is not over.  

Founded in 1988, Visual AIDS is the only contemporary arts organization fully committed to raising AIDS awareness and creating dialogue around HIV issues today, by producing and presenting visual art projects, exhibitions, public forums and publications - while assisting artists living with HIV/AIDS. We are committed to preserving and honoring the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement.