Guillaume Dustan & Rafael SánchezHIV Isn’t Over: Art —> Activism, with Guillaume Dustan and Rafael Sánchez
Fri, Nov 7, 7 pm (120 min.)The Come Forever Garage
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The Biennial Consortium is a selective network of New York City’s leading art and cultural institutions that join Performa every two years to present and support performances and exhibitions across the city. First established with the inaugural Performa Biennial in 2005, the Consortium has remained at the heart of the biennial, setting the stage for citywide partnerships that highlight New York’s status as the performance capital of the world every other November.
As Performa marks its 20th anniversary in 2025, the Consortium reflects both the creative history of the city and its living legacy of radical performance. Since the 1950s and 60s, New York has been the meeting point for artists across disciplines who have shaped the international avant-garde, and the Consortium continues to carry that spirit forward.
This year, the network expands with new partners—including Americas Society and Come Forever Garage—while also welcoming back long-standing collaborators such as Asia Society and Metrograph. Together, these institutions affirm performance’s vital role in shaping cultural dialogue and collective imagination.
This screening is a preview event for HIV Isn’t Over: Art —> Activism (Art Becomes Activism), an exhibition forthcoming in 2026.
Program: 7-9pm
Extended Screening: 9-10pm
What political factors conspire to make an illness incurable? The works in this program examine how practices of self-study are transformed into acts of activism under conditions of political neglect. When artists make work about the body—and that body is HIV-positive—public perception shifts. Autobiographical artwork becomes activist practice when it depicts a roadmap to a life that a dominant culture tells us is impossible to live.
The artworks in this program engage themes of gender variance, promiscuity, chronic illness, housing insecurity, work absenteeism, issues of love, and drug use.
Though these experiences are often dismissed as aesthetic conceits, the challenges depicted in these artworks are real, lived, and ongoing. The boundary between art and activism blurs when life itself is at risk. And when the political imperatives of these practices go unaddressed, the result too often is early disability, ostracization, and the death of the artist.
In a world where the ongoing HIV crisis remains incurable and continues to spread, it's worth asking what demands do these artworks make on our public health system today?
This November 7th screening includes video work by Guillaume Dustan (1965-2005) and Rafael Sánchez (b 1960), with commentary from Sánchez and curators Julien Laugier, Exx Nottage and Olga Rozenblum.
Access Note: This is a hybrid event which will be presented both on-site at The Come Forever Garage and online:
https://zoom.us/j/99259656345?pwd=aNgsamC435Zp2CP38fD2c38oYIf1cw.1
Come Forever is a ground floor establishment with a wide door and a bathroom that is accessible to those using mobility devices. Indoor space at Come Forever is mask-required and both KN95 and N95 masks are provided. All snacks are served outdoors in open air. For access questions please contact exxforever@comeforever.net
Visual AIDS utilizes art to fight AIDS by provoking dialogue, supporting HIV+ artists and preserving 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. It is committed to preserving and honoring the work of artists with HIV/AIDS and the artistic contributions of the AIDS movement.
Julien Laugier is an art curator and publisher. He was a member of Parisian independent spaces castillo/corrales (2012-2015) and Treize (2018-2024) where he organized among other exhibitions by and with Lutz Bacher, Robert Glück, Gabi Losoncy and Jean-Michel Wicker. Since 2018 Laugier has managed the Guillaume Dustan film estate with Olga Rozenblum.
Olga Rozenblum is a researcher, publisher, and activist. Part of the co-founders of Treize, an independent space in Paris, she has been teaching in art schools in France and Switzerland (ENSAPC Cergy, Beaux-Arts Marseille, HEAD Geneva). Her work is revolving around communities' archives, queer and feminist publishing, research on minorities hidden histories. She has been curating and programming since the 2010’s and manages Guillaume Dustan's film estate with Julien Laugier.
Exx Nottage (they/he) is an archivist, healthcare activist, and art curator. They are the co-founder of The Collective Practices Oral History Project: NYC 1980 - 2005, as well as a co-organizer at The Come Forever Garage, a garage-space in Brooklyn that houses a public archive, public bathroom, mask non-optional social space, and healthcare mutual aid initiatives. Their most recent curatorial project is Chloe Dzubilo: The Prince George Drawings at Participant Inc, May - June 2025. He is the archivist for the Performa Biennial.
Curated by Olga Rozenblum, Julien Laugier, and Exx Nottage, in collaboration with Visual AIDS and Semiotext(e).
