New Online Exhibit Showcases Great Artists Lost to AIDS

Art Lives is the new online exhibit dedicated to honoring the legacies of a generation of artists lost to AIDS. POBA, a non-profit "virtual arts center" dedicated to celebrating the work of late artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, teamed with a coalition of HIV/AIDS organizations—including DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS), LifeBEAT: Music Fights AIDS, and Visual AIDS—to create the permanent online platform, which launches today to commemorate World AIDS Day.

The exhibit includes early footage and audio recordings of disco diva Sylvester; original sketches and fabrications by acclaimed fashion designer Patrick Kelly; graphics by Ken Kendrick, famously known for designing the “Just Say No” anti-drug logo; and other creative forces devestated by the epidemic. 

Click through for a preview of the exhibit.

 

Fashion designer Patrick Kelly (1955-1990)

Related | Fall In 'Love' With Patrick Kelly at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Design Sketches | Several Silhouettes | Patrick Kelly, 1986

Source: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Architect and department store designer Jim Terrell (1944-1989)

Marshall Field's Chicago Design Rendering | Jim Terrell, Year Unknown

courtesy of Debra Robusto | Stoneworks

"Godfather of Disco" Mel Cheren (1933-2007)

Untitled 11 | Mel Cheren, Year Unknown

Critic and curator Nicholas A. Moufarrege (1947-1985)

The Fifth Day | Nicholas A. Moufarrege, Year Unknown

Painter Martin Wong (1946-1999)

Fireman | Martin Wong, c. 1990

Graphic designer Ken Kendrick (1949-1992)

"Just Say No" | Ken Kendrick , Year Unknown

Recording artist Sylvester (1947-1988)

Related | Fund This: Bring Mighty Real Sylvester to Broadway

Immortal | Sylvester, 1979

Courtesy of Concord Music Group, Inc.

Check out the entire Art Lives exhibit here. 

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