interviewed by Paul Purcell
Thomas Sokolowski, Director of the Grey Gallery in New York City, toured Australia during May, 1992, under the auspices of the Australia Council. His itinerary included public lectures on AIDS related art and censorship, in seven cities. Established seventeen years ago, the Grey Gallery specializes in variety and difference, as celebrated in their exhibitions. Shows have ranged from (the early} Andy Warhol to Etruscan antiquities (the first ever in the United States} to art about AIDS. "Say something new" could be the motto of the gallery. The current exhibition, at the Grey Gallery, is From Media to Metaphor: Art About AIDS. During 1993 Sokolowski hopes to mount an exhibition of Juan Davila's work. The importance of his visit cannot be underestimated: Australia has never had a major exhibition relating to AIDS in any of the state galleries. I spoke to Sokolowski about AIDS, art, activism and censorship.
Paul Purcell Was the exhibition, Let the Record Show,at New York's New Museum in December, 1987, the first AIDS exhibition?
Thomas Sokolowski Oh no, the New Museum would like to tell you this. We (The Grey Gallery) did the first window installation (in September, 1987). We have, in addition to our interior space, two window vitrines that are like a big department store window but they're thirteen foot square and they look right out onto Washington Square Park, a popular place in Greenwich village. We commissioned Juan Gonzales to do a piece. It was called Don't Mourn, Consecrate: an image taken from a Holbein painting of a dying Christ, meaning don't just shed tears, do something. The other vitrine (which also showed Gonzales's work) involved a big piece of stationery: in the 19th... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline