AIDSGATE

New York: The Silence=Death Project / AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, 1987. First printing. Offset lithograph. 33 1/2 x 21 3/4 in. Very good..

The first printing of the second poster created by the Silence=Death collective, and their first after joining ACT UP.

Created for the group's picket of the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington, D.C. in 1987 and for the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights - ACT UP's third action, the first to recieve national coverage, and the first outside of New York City.

The Silence=Death collective, comprising Avram Finkelstein, Brian Howard, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, Chris Lione, and Jorge Soccarás, emerged following the death of Finkelstein's partner Don Yowell from AIDS in 1984. A group of graphic designers and art professionals, the collective designed and produced the groundbreaking poster and began wheatpasting copies throughout the city in the months before the formation of ACT UP. The collective attended Larry Kramer's speech at the Center in March 1987, which led to the creation of ACT UP, and members of the collective joined the new group.

Though Silence=Death had been designed to compete for attention with advertising posters wheatpasted on New York City streets, AIDSGATE was the collective's first poster created specifically for a demonstration, and the smaller text at the bottom attacks with certainty the government's inaction and homophobia: "What is Reagan's real policy on AIDS? Genocide of all Non-whites, Non-males, and Non-homosexuals?" Later printings contain the copyright of ACT UP on the bottom. Near fine.