"I will therefore follow Delaporte's assertion: AIDS does not exist apart from the practices that conceptualize it, represent it, and respond to it. We know AIDS only in and through those practices. This assertion does not contest the existence of viruses, antibodies, infections, or transmission routes. Least of all does it contest the reality of illness, suffering, and death. What it does contest is the notion that there is an underlying reality of AIDS, upon which are constructed the representations, or the culture, or the politics of AIDS. If we recognize that AIDS exists only in and through these constructions, then hope- fully we can also recognize the imperative to know them, analyze them, and wrest control of them.
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There could hardly be a clearer declaration of the contradictions inherent in aesthetic idealism than one which blandly accepts art's inability to intervene in the social and simultaneously praises its commodity value. To recognize this as contradictory is not, however, to object to exploiting that commodity value for the purpose of fundraising for AIDS research and service. Given the failure of government at every level to provide the funding necessary to combat the epidemic, such efforts as "Art against AIDS" have been necessary, even crucial to our survival. I want, nevertheless, to make three caveats.
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1. Scientific research, health care, and education are the responsibility and purpose of government and not of so-called "private initiative," an ideological term that excuses and perpetuates the state's irresponsibility. Therefore, every venture of this nature should make clear that it is necessitated strictly because of criminal negligence on the part of government. ...
2. Blind faith in science, as if it were entirely neutral and uncontaminated by politics, is naive and dangerous. It must be the responsibility of everyone contributing to fundraisers to know enough about AIDS to determine whether the beneficiary will put the money to the best possible use. How many artists and dealers contributing to "Art against AIDS," for example, know precisely what kinds of scientific research are supported by the American Foundation for AIDS Research? ...
3. Raising money is the most passive response of cultural practitioners to social crisis, a response that perpetuates the idea that art itself has no social function (aside from being a commodity), that there is no such thing as an engaged, activist aesthetic practice. It is this third point that I want to underscore by insisting, against Rosenblum, that art does have the power to save lives, and it is this very power that must be recognized, fostered, and supported in every way possible. But if we are to do this, we will have to abandon the idealist conception of art. We don't need a cultural renaissance; we need cultural practices actively participating in the struggle against AIDS. We don't need to transcend the epidemic; we need to end it."
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