It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic

An “unsparing account” (NPR) of art collective Gran Fury, which fought back during the AIDS crisis through direct action and community-made propaganda

In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer people, intravenous drug users, and communities of color in America, and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out of the activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an art collective that called itself Gran Fury formed to campaign against corporate greed, govern...