Image of the Day: World AIDS Day

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Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of World AIDS day. According to WorldAidsDay.org, World AIDS Day, which is held on December 1st, “is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died. World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day and the first one was held in 1988.”

This image captures a poster created by Gran Fury, the artistic wing of the radical (in both senses of the word) organization ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). To highlight their film Dallas Buyers Club, Focus Features put out a great slideshow of Gran Fury artwork, which describes the image:

In 1989, Gran Fury received a commission to create a work for the American Foundation for AIDS Research’s (AmFAR) “Arts against AIDS on the Road” which intended to bring artists’ work to different cities. Taking the idea literally, the collective created a series of bus-side posters entitled “Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed and Indifference Do.” The piece, which featured three multi-racial, differently aged couples (one gay, one straight, and one lesbian), included the coda, “Corporate Greed, Government Inaction, and Public Indifference Make AIDS a Political Crisis.” Rather brilliantly, Gran Fury used the techniques of corporate advertising, like bright and shiny Benetton clothing ads of the time, to bring attention to corporate greed. As one Gran Fury member commented, “We are trying to fight for attention as hard as Coca-Cola fights for attention.”

Read the rest of the description and check out the other works of art here.

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Born and raised on the mean streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comic, writer, blogger, satirist and filmmaker based in New York. Katie graduated from The Dalton School (where she teaches history) and Wesleyan University (where she learned that labels are for jars.) A director of Living Liberally and co-founder/performer in Laughing Liberally, Katie has performed at Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Culture Project, D.C. Comedy Festival, all five Netroots Nations, and The Nation Magazine Cruise, where she made Howard Dean laugh! and has appeared with Lizz Winstead, Markos Moulitsas, The Yes Men, Cynthia Nixon and Jim Hightower. Her writing and videos have appeared in The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation Magazine, Gawker, Nerve, Jezebel, the Huffington Post, Alternet and Katie has been featured in/on NY Magazine, LA Times, In These Times, Gawker,Jezebel, MSNBC, Air America, GritTV, the Alan Colmes Show, Sirius radio (which hung up on her once) and the National Review, which called Katie “cute and some what brainy.” Katie co-produced Tim Robbins’s film Embedded, (Venice Film Festival, Sundance Channel); Estela Bravo’s Free to Fly (Havana Film Festival, LA Latino Film Festival); was outreach director for The Take, Naomi Klein/Avi Lewis documentary about Argentine workers (Toronto & Venice Film Festivals, Film Forum); co-directed New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War, a video for Museum of the City of NY exhibit, and wrote/directed viral satiric videos including Jews/ Women/ Gays for McCain.

Katie is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, and New Yorker.

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