ABSTRACT:

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, visual artists created a canon of work examining the illness experience of people living with AIDS. Largely forgotten today is a subset of this canon that simultaneously engaged AIDS narratives and religion, thereby dialoguing across political, cultural, and ideological divides. The artists who crafted these works created spaces of sanctioned discourse, drawing together sexual and religious histories in a manner reminiscent of the confessional as analyzed in Michel Foucault’s work. This article rediscovers an archive rich in interdisciplinary illness narratives, arguing that the unearthed art pieces articulate four themes that interrogate the relationship between people with AIDS and religious traditions. In addition to furthering our understanding of a forgotten expression of AIDS illness narratives, this analysis provides insight into art’s capacity to dialogue between communities in the setting of internal divisions. These lessons may aid us as we endeavor to understand the diversity, function, and applications of illness narratives in the setting of the politicized diseases of the 21st century, including COVID-19.

摘要：

在整个 20 世纪 80 年代和 90 年代，视觉艺术家创作了一系列作品来审视艾滋病患者的疾病经历。今天基本上被遗忘的是这个经典的一个子集，它同时涉及艾滋病叙事和宗教，从而跨越政治、文化和意识形态分歧进行对话。创作这些作品的艺术家创造了受认可的话语空间，以一种让人想起米歇尔·福柯作品中分析的忏悔室的方式将性和宗教历史结合在一起。本文重新发现了丰富的跨学科疾病叙述档案，认为出土的艺术作品阐明了四个主题，质疑艾滋病患者与宗教传统之间的关系。除了进一步加深我们对艾滋病疾病叙述中被遗忘的表达方式的理解之外，这一分析提供了对艺术在内部分歧背景下社区之间对话能力的洞察。当我们努力理解疾病叙事在 21 世纪政治化疾病（包括 COVID-19）背景下的多样性、功能和应用时，这些教训可能会帮助我们。