I felt the need to share this on World AIDS Day. It’s a simply-done work about the numerous NYC-based artists who’ve died of AIDS. Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, and Robert Mapplethorpe are just a few of the names here.
Yes, there are millions who’ve died, many of whom never achieved the fame many of the people in this film did, any who will die nameless, faceless… but to us North Americans, the victims are far away, out of our reach, outside our scope of experience. Aren’t they? This film (and accompanying website) “Last Address“, challenges that attitude.
With simple shots of New York life, including birds, cats, people, roads, traffic, etc, the film shows the abodes (with addresses) of all the artists who died. The absolute ordinary-ness is striking. These are people, not statistics. People like you and I.
Ordinary people get AIDS. We are all ordinary, and we can do something that is ordinary, logical, and .. ridiculously right: demand a cure. It’s overdue.